


The Body Snatcher

by Alara J Rogers (AlaraJRogers)



Category: X-Men (comics)
Genre: Drama, Other
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 1998-07-11
Updated: 2001-12-27
Packaged: 2017-10-03 14:04:39
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 3
Words: 92,113
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18940
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AlaraJRogers/pseuds/Alara%20J%20Rogers
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Magneto is kidnapped by a sociopathic female mutant who steals his body, leaving him trapped in her own. Powerless, he must use all his wits, as well as survival skills he thought left behind in Auschwitz, to stay alive. But the final cost of freedom may be more than he's willing to pay...</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Fall of the Tower

**Author's Note:**

> This story contains scenes of rape, torture and violence, but this is a serious work dealing with issues such as identity and transformation, resistance in captivity, and recovery from torture, not a work of erotica or traditional "hurt/comfort" where the hero's boo-boos get kissed away by friends or lovers. Probably people with triggers in general should avoid this story, but in particular, triggering material contained within may include, in addition to rape and torture: suicidal ideations, Holocaust imagery, gender dysphoria, misogyny, homophobia and transphobia, graphic depiction of original characters dying, and alcoholism.
> 
> These characters are fictional. They are not avatars of Alara Rogers. Do not assume that I agree with anyone who expresses an opinion in the story. Particularly do not assume that I necessarily agree with Magneto. I love the guy and all, but he's a 60-something male Old World European atheist Jew who turned to a life of mutant terrorism. I am a 40-something female liberal American agnostic lapsed Catholic who lives on the Internet. He's going to end up expressing a number of opinions that, if I were there in the story with him, I would argue with him about, and I will not necessarily have other characters contradict him because it may or may not be in character for them. (For instance, I do not share Magneto's largely derogatory opinions of Americans in general and Philadelphia in particular. If I didn't like Philly just fine I would never have lived there.) Absolutely none of the characters are supposed to be me, or have any relationship to me aside from the usual writerly drawing-off-my-life-to-flesh-people-out.
> 
> Finally, timing and continuity notes. This story starts sort of around the same time as UXM #290/XM #8, and promptly splits off into an alternate universe where numerous things won't happen. This includes retcons. Erik Lehnsherr is Magneto's real name in this story, though none of the X-Men actually know that yet. Do not waste my time by pointing out to me that Erik Lehnsherr has been retconned into being a false identity, because I don't care.

**Chapter 1: The Fall of the Tower**

_I wore the clothes you wanted  
I took your name  
If there is some confusion,  
who's to blame?  
I sequenced your arrival  
I sealed your fate  
I pushed the button  
and erased your master tape  
If there is some confusion  
who's to blame?  
\--REM, "I Took Your Name"_

For him, standing on a street corner in the middle of a big city was rather akin to a normal person walking into a stadium full of cheering, screaming fans, all yelling something different, usually at the top of their lungs. The magnetic fields around him were a cacophony composed of car engines and traffic light switches and electrical wires and radio/TV waves cauterizing the air, howling in his head. He could stand New York City, he could stand Paris, and that was about it-- the cultural opportunities both afforded compensated for how irritating he found cities in general. Philadelphia, however, was probably fairly high on the list of least pleasant cities to spend his time in. What passed for culture here was provincial American glorification of their ridiculously recent past. In general, he preferred Americans when they didn't try to pretend they had a past... fortunate, since in his work, he had to deal with a lot of Americans, and most of them were completely myopic about history. Not an endearing trait, that, but better than their patriotic glossing over of the genocides they'd committed and the assassinations they'd caused, the litany of their crimes. It wasn't as if the Americans were actually any worse than any other nation, of course, but they were so damned self-righteous about it.

_Whereas you, of course, haven't a single self-righteous bone in your body._

He smiled thinly, recognizing the hypocrisy. But then, he didn't pretend to be anything other than he was-- a terrorist fighting for the freedom and security of his particular minority. A freedom fighter by any other name. History would decide whether he was a visionary or a madman on the basis of whether or not he won.

And right now, whether or not he won probably depended on how well he prepared for the inevitable battle, which was what he was doing in Philadelphia in the first place. His supplier-- an import/export company dealing in bulk foods, a very discreet business that had so far never asked him why he wanted enough food to stock a small city-- had moved to Philadelphia because the superhero insurance was a lot lower. Ironic, that, considering that one of their biggest customers was a wanted supercriminal who might well accidentally draw a battle down onto them simply by standing in their office. But then, the world thought he was dead, so Magneto considered the chance of this happening to be reasonably slight. The meeting had gone well, the next shipment of food to his staging ground in the Pacific had been arranged, and now all he had to do was get out of this accursed city without attracting the attention of Cerebro, 140 miles to the north. It wouldn't do for Charles to know Magneto lived, yet. Mostly because he was still too weak from his fall from the heavens to withstand a battle with the X-Men, and after the catastrophe their last meeting had turned into, he knew that no matter how reasonable his words, however sensible his beliefs, the X-Men would still attack him, simply for being alive and for not kowtowing to almighty Charles' vision of ideal human/mutant relations.

So he stood on a street corner, impatiently waiting for the light to turn, though he was perfectly capable of reaching out with his power and throwing the switch himself, because any use of his power this close to Cerebro would probably be rather like sending Charles an engraved invitation. That, and he felt like a bull in a china closet here. Cities were such delicate things, to one who perturbed magnetic fields simply by existing. A simple use of his power to change a traffic light here might send a flux through nearby power lines that might electrocute innocent people, and he was still trying to avoid hurting the innocent. He might have to kill civilians in his war for a mutant homeland, but he considered it morally imperative to make the casualties as low as possible. Certainly he didn't want anyone to die just because he wanted to cross the street in a hurry. Thus he held back, waiting.

Words didn't do justice to how much he hated cities.

As he waited, a young woman approached him, a frantic and distracted look to her face. "Excuse me, sir, can you tell me how to get to City Hall?"

He glanced at her. "I'm not a native of this city. You'd do better to ask someone else."

She looked around at all the people bustling past. "Are you sure? I mean, you don't have any idea at all?" she asked in a lost voice, as if she considered him her only hope.

As it happened, he _did_ have some idea of what she was talking about. "I believe that you can take a subway there. Or no, I believe here they call it an elevated train. There are stops all along Market Street--" he pointed in the general direction of Market Street. "Cross over to that street and ask a native where the nearest El stop is. I don't recall the cost of the fare, but it's probably inexpensive, and there is a stop for City Hall, I believe." He didn't take subways himself-- taxis were considerably more anonymous, and rented cars better still, for one who considered money no object-- but he tried to know as much as he could about the rapid transit systems of any given city he visited, as he could cause serious damage by using his powers too near a subway's third rail if he didn't compensate for it. And also because, in general, he liked to know his way around. It wasn't inconceivable that he'd have to hide from pursuers in a subway. Certainly preferable to hiding from them on a boat, something he actually had done and regretted every minute of.

She smiled broadly. "Thank you," she said effusively, and reached to clasp his hand. "Thank you so much--"

Startled, but not wishing to be rude, Magneto let her touch his hand. He didn't imagine for a moment she might be a threat, until the world exploded, and then it was far too late.

* * *

The first thing he noticed was that his head hurt worse than it had in twenty years, when the migraines he used to get had finally tapered off. The second thing he noticed was that he was in some kind of vehicle, being transported somewhere, and that he was leaning against something warm and large and human-shaped. And the third thing he noticed was that he didn't know where he was.

This was actually quite terrifying. Magneto's sense of the geomagnetic field ensured that no matter where he was, no matter what had been done to him, he _always_ knew where he was. The talent was not always as useful as it could be-- when he'd been kidnapped by the alien Stranger and taken to another planet, all his powers had been able to tell him was that he wasn't on Earth, which he'd known already. But even then, there wasn't this terrifying absence, this total blindness and numbness to the electromagnetic fields around him.

He tried to summon power. Nothing came. Not even pain, which usually accompanied unsuccessful attempts to invoke his magnetic abilities. It was as if his powers were simply _gone_. Even the passive ones-- he hadn't been able to wield magnetism until past his 24th birthday, but he'd had an internal compass since he could walk far enough to get lost if he hadn't had one. Even under the effects of power suppressant fields, even when Zaladane had stripped him of almost everything he had, he had always had that. Now it was gone, and the surge of fear he felt gave him sufficient energy to open his eyes.

The light was blinding, additional agony to go with the pain in his head. Involuntarily, he moaned, shutting his eyes again and trying to lift his arm to block his eyes, so he could open them with better control of the light flow. But his body was sluggish and unresponsive.

"You're waking up already? I'm impressed."

The voice was strangely familiar. A man's voice, deep and resonant, with an American accent. He knew that voice. It was coming from right beside his ear, presumably from whoever he was leaning on. Magneto turned his head toward the sound-- moving slowly, as any sudden movement made it feel as if his head was about to fall off-- and cautiously opened his eyes again.

And stared at his own doppelganger, silhouetted in red afternoon sunlight.

_Afternoon? It was early morning when I lost consciousness..._

For a moment he floundered in confusion. Could he have managed to mistake afternoon for morning? Without his power to tell him what direction they were traveling, he couldn't know that reddening sun was setting instead of rising... but no, he didn't feel as if he'd been unconscious through an entire night and toward a new morning. And the sun had been higher and brighter when... whatever had happened had occurred. Had the woman attacked him? It was the only possibility, but then what was the significance of the man who looked just like him? _Shapechanger, perhaps?_

He felt a hand on his leg. It felt as if the hand was touching bare skin, though he 'd been wearing pants when he lost consciousness. "Well, I'm glad to see you waking up so promptly," the voice said, and now he knew where he'd heard it. It was exactly like his own, except that the speaker had an American accent and cadenced his words very differently than Magneto would have. Like a different person, speaking in his voice. Not a perfect doppelganger, then. "It hasn't been any real fun with you asleep."

The hand moved up his leg, stroking it. The sensation was irritating and overfamiliar. Magneto looked down, and stared stupidly at what he was seeing for several seconds, unable to process it. The hand on his leg was grotesquely huge, even though it looked just like his own. No, it wasn't huge. It was just bigger than it should be against his leg. His leg was too small, too thin, and shaped wrong. And the wrong color. It was still white, but with a more sallow tinge to it than his own extremely pink flesh. And why was he able to look directly at the flesh of his leg, anyway? Where _were_ his pants? Whatever shirt he was wearing, it was too light, too cool-feeling to be his shirt, and there was something constricting around his chest, and his socks and shoes were gone, replaced with wooden clogs and bare skin, and instead of pants he seemed to be wearing something blue that bunched up around his waist and upper thighs and left all the rest of his legs bare. And the hand lying limply beside his leg was far too small, and...

He looked back up at the doppelganger. "Who... are you?" he forced out, past a dry and hoarse throat-- and froze in shock. The voice speaking those words _was_ cadenced as his own was, _did_ have his own accent-- but it wasn't his voice. It was a woman's.

"Isn't it obvious?" the doppelganger said, and smiled broadly, an expression that would never have made its home on Magneto's face. "I'm the Master of Magnetism. And you... are nobody."

Suddenly he knew what had happened. Painfully he looked down at the hands that probably belonged to him, focusing on trying to move them. They twitched, proving his theory. Delicate female hands; the strong masculine hand that should have been his and wasn't was still running up and down the leg that shouldn't have been his and was.

"My... body..." he said hoarsely. "You... took..."

"You _are_ quick on the uptake," the other said. "Yes, I took your body. And a lovely body it is, too. Why, I can control almost every aspect of this car without even having to think about it hard. We ran out of gas two hours back, and it just doesn't matter."

Car. Yes, that fit. The ride was too smooth, too quiet to be a train or plane. He was in a car, in the back seat, sitting next to the body snatcher, leaning on her in fact since he didn't seem to have the strength to support his own weight. It was a taxicab. He could see someone in the front seat, driving the car. But that didn't make sense; she had said she was controlling the car, with the powers she'd stolen from him when she took his body and left him in hers. Did she leave him in hers? That made sense; he hadn't been able to see what this body looked like very well, but the blue thing bunched around his waist could very well be the denim skirt the young woman on the street had worn. Of course, there were no guarantees that that had been her real body, either. She might be serially jumping from body to body, dumping her new victims into the bodies she'd just vacated.

"Driver...?"

"Oh, you're concerned for the driver? Don't be. He's quite beyond your concern." She smiled cruelly at him. "If I were you, I'd be more worried about what I'm going to do to you."

His head hurt so much, and he was starting to feel nauseous. He really was in no condition to deal with this. Not that it mattered. "Taking me... where?"

"Someplace safe. Someplace far removed from civilization, where no one's likely to come investigate." She grinned again.

This was not promising. "I've... allies... find me... stop you..." A lie. His Acolytes were all dead, murdered by Cortez's manipulations and his own blind foolishness in succumbing to them. He still didn't fully understand why he had lived, why once again he'd been the sole survivor. But he had vowed not to let anyone else flock to his banner until he was prepared, until he had once again raised Asteroid M and made all the necessary provisions for its inhabitants' safety. Right now, he had no allies, no one who would notice if he lived or died. Most of the world thought him dead already. He hoped, though, that perhaps the lie would give her pause.

"I doubt it," she said cheerily. "If they come looking for you, what they'll find is _me_. And I'll seem to them to be you. I don't think any of _your_ allies would be overly concerned about one human woman, now would they?"

"I... will stop... you..."

"I'm sure you will. One fragile, feeble, powerless female against the Master of Magnetism. I'm already trembling with fear."

Her voice-- his voice, her tone-- was amused, as if he were so little threat to her that his posturing couldn't even make her angry or defensive. Which, in his current condition, was very likely the case. Magneto cursed the impulse that had let the woman touch him. Lost his edge, not paranoid enough by far. He should at least have thrown up a biomagnetic shield. But the damage Cortez had done him had weakened him enough to make such subtle operations difficult, and who expected a slightly pudgy, ordinary girl with mousy hair, asking for directions on a Philadelphia street, to be a threat? Stupid, stupid. He'd been in this business long enough to know better. Never let down your guard. Well, he wouldn't make that mistake again, if he survived this.

The car, which had been making its way up a pebbly dirt trail through forest, now came to a rest beside a small wooden house, nestled in a small clearing amongst the trees. "We're home. I suggest you take a good look at the outdoors while you still can. This is going to be the last breath of fresh air you get for a very, very long time."

She got out of the car. Frantically he tried to make his borrowed body work, fighting the pain and the sluggishness, trying to crawl away from the door. This didn't faze her in the slightest; she simply walked around the car, opened the other door, reached in, and pulled him out, using nothing more than his stolen body's physical strength. Weakly he tried to resist, but this body simply had no strength-- he desperately hoped that was a temporary aftereffect of the transition, not a permanent state. She lifted him, and now he could see that the driver was dead, springs from within the seat driven into the back of his neck, holding him in place. Fury welled. The body snatcher had murdered an innocent with _his_ powers. But there was nothing he could do-- he hadn't the strength to escape her grip as she carried him into the house and down a flight of stairs into a basement.

"Your body is so magnificently strong. I can carry you with hardly any exertion at all," she gushed. "This is _wonderful!_ Oh, I'm so glad I went into Philly yesterday. To think I'd have missed this opportunity!"

There was a bed in the basement, also a bathroom with no door. The body snatcher dumped Magneto on the bed. "You're still entirely too out of it," she said. "Take a nap, relax. The weakness you're feeling will pass. Then we'll begin the real fun."

She floated back up the stairs, chuckling gleefully. At the top of the stairs, he heard the door close and an iron bolt slide shut on its other side.

_Move!_

He didn't know how long he had before she came back, and he was fairly certain he didn't want to be around for it if at all possible. If he was going to escape, it would be best to do it now. He forced himself to sit up, kicking the wooden clogs this body was wearing off his feet. The world swayed dizzily, and the nausea increased severalfold. With a terrific effort of will, he forced himself not to throw up right there, and tried to stagger off the bed, heading for the washroom. He was too dizzy to stay upright, though, and fell to hands and knees as soon as he was off the bed. The skirt tangled around his knees as he tried to crawl; he had to keep stopping to pull it free, and every brief delay to do so made him think he wasn't going to reach the washroom in time. But he was practiced enough at fighting nausea that he did indeed make it to the toilet before finally letting this rebellious borrowed body have its way.

Even after he'd emptied the contents of his stomach, he was racked with dry heaves for a minute or two more. Eventually he got them to stop, and by leaning heavily on first the toilet and then the nearby sink, got himself upright. He stared at the mirror over the sink. It was the young woman who'd wanted directions, all right. Smallish, maybe 5 foot 4 at most, with thick, somewhat greasy light brown hair, shoulder length and straight. She had brown eyes, set slightly too close together, and a nose a little too big to be attractive, and she weighed a little too much-- it showed in the puffy roundness of a face that should have been more like a triangle. Not a tremendously attractive girl, which made him think that this was her original body after all. Why would a body snatcher steal such an ordinary looking body? And if that was the case, that placed her age-- this body was somewhere between 23 and 27, he was fairly sure. So the body snatcher was young, possibly inexperienced. Advantages for him. He needed all that he could get.

When he tried to drink some water, to compensate for what he'd just lost, his stomach rebelled again, and he retched. Obviously he couldn't put anything in his stomach now. He settled for rinsing his mouth out with the water without swallowing, to wash the taste of the vomit out of his mouth and fool his dry and acid-burned throat into thinking he'd drunk something.

Though much of the nausea had passed now that there was nothing left in his stomach, the headache had if anything gotten worse, and he still was too dizzy to stand unassisted. There were ways to deal with headaches. Close your eyes and let them unfocus under your lids. Rub your temples. Breathe evenly and deeply. None of it worked any better than it had the last few times he'd had truly severe headaches. Magneto opened his eyes, giving up on the attempt to conquer the migraine. He lurched from the sink to the doorjamb-- the bathroom had once had a door, it had just been removed, apparently-- and from there fell to the floor and crawled back to the bed, again wrestling with the skirt as he did so.

In this condition, it was unlikely he was going anywhere. Magneto scanned the room, looking for anything that might mean a weapon or a way to escape. The windows were the kind you found in basements-- small, looking out just over the dirtline, and they were glazed with safety glass and barred. The bars were the sort to keep burglars out, not prisoners in, but the effect would be the same. No escape there. The top of the stairs might be possible, if he were stronger-- the door had been bolted, he'd heard that clearly, but perhaps he could break down the door, or smash a hole in it. But he'd only be able to do that if she left the house, as she'd certainly hear him trying to escape that way, and she'd probably think to reinforce the door with steel, given that she had his powers. He'd already seen there was no exit from the bathroom, so unless there was a hidden door someplace, he was not going to be able to escape anytime soon.

The question was, what would that cost him? The fact that she hadn't killed him immediately didn't mean she wouldn't kill him at all. Serial killers often kept their victims captive for hours, days or weeks before killing them. Which was it? If she was going to kill him quickly he had to keep struggling to find an escape route, regardless of how sick he felt and how little chance he had, because he couldn't simply give up and allow someone to kill him. On the other hand, if she was planning to keep him alive for some time, he could take the chance that there would be a better opportunity to escape later, when he was rested and this horrible sickness had worn off. Whatever she chose to do to him could be endured, as long as it didn't kill him.

He considered. _If_ this was her original body, she might be reluctant to kill it, perhaps even unable. A fragile thread to hang his life on, but there was more. She had said he wouldn't be seeing the outside world again "for a very long time," implying that she intended to hold him captive for a very long time. If she had intended to kill him, it was most likely that she'd have said "ever."

To hell with it. He was probably rationalizing, trying to convince himself that she wasn't going to kill him so that he could excuse trying to sleep off the sickness. He really didn't have sufficient evidence one way or the other. But he _couldn't_ escape right now. He was entirely too sick, and if he used one of the very few opportunities he'd be given to escape, in his current condition he'd just end up wasting it. If she intended to kill him, there was absolutely nothing he could do. He curled up on the bed and closed his eyes, trying to force himself to sleep despite the tension he felt. It was not that hard a thing to do-- he'd become practiced at sleeping the night before battles, or sleeping the night before the Germans made their selections and condemned people to the gas chambers, when either way he might not live to see another sunset.

* * *

The sound of the door opening awakened him. He pulled himself into a sitting position, feeling considerably better, at least physically. The nausea and dizziness were gone, and his head only ached slightly, nothing he would ordinarily even take notice of. As she came down the stairs, he struggled with himself to remain calm, not to visibly clench his fists or position himself for a battle. It was very unlikely that there would be a battle, at least in the physical sense. Whatever she wanted to do to him would most likely occur, no matter what he tried to do about it. But it was all but impossible not to prepare himself to fight back.

She was carrying several steel cables as large loops. "I hope you're all rested up. I brought us some presents."

The cheerful, almost gleeful tone in what sounded so much like his own voice grated far more than the same tone from an unfamiliar voice would. "Why are you doing this?" he asked evenly. "I understand the motivation to steal my body well enough, but why not simply keep me captive? Or let me go, for that matter, since it's hardly likely I could do anything to force you to give me back what you took?" Another lie. He had several ideas as to how he might accomplish that, once he was free.

"No, that isn't how it works," the body snatcher said. "You've had power all your life. It's time for you to learn what it's like to be powerless."

He almost retorted that this was hardly a lesson he needed to learn, but bit it back. If she had somehow managed to miss the fact that he'd been a prisoner in the Nazi death camps when she'd learned whatever she had about him, he wasn't going to give her the satisfaction of knowing about it.

The steel cables moved suddenly, arrowing toward his limbs. Magneto leapt off the bed to avoid them, trying to get past her. He'd miscalculated his own strength, though, and landed short of where he'd meant to, still short of her. When he tried to dodge around her, she grabbed him.

Unlike a man born, the body snatcher was probably not trained to protect the more vulnerable points of a male body, and since she was still wearing his clothes in their civilian style, she was effectively unarmored. He drove his knee into her crotch. As she gasped and doubled over, Magneto bent, scooped up one of the wooden clogs he'd kicked off when he'd been first imprisoned, and struck her in the head as he straightened, hoping that the blow to her groin would prevent her from concentrating enough to protect herself from wood. She went to her knees. He hit her again, trying to use just enough strength to knock her out without damaging his body seriously, and she went down all the way. Magneto dropped the shoe and ran for the stairs, trying to leap up them three at a time to put as much distance between her and him as he could.

Unfortunately, he didn't know how to leap steps reliably in a long denim skirt. It went down to mid-calf, loose enough that it hadn't interfered with him running or kneeing her, but jumping three steps at once was beyond what it would allow. Near the top, his knee got caught in the skirt and slammed down against the nearest stair, and he fell half the flight before managing to catch himself. He started up the stairs again, this time one step at a time, but had only gotten four more steps when a steel cable wrapped around his chest and dragged him off the staircase, carrying him over to the bed and dropping him on it.

The cable remained wrapped around him, tight enough to impair his breathing. He couldn't get loose, and couldn't get off the bed. Magneto looked over at the body snatcher, who was kneeling on the floor, rubbing her head and breathing heavily. He'd hurt her, but clearly not enough to keep her from using the powers, or to knock her out as he'd thought he had. He was starting to feel dizzy and faint from the constriction when it finally released, the body snatcher sitting up on the floor and looking at him. One of the cables caught his leg before he was able to scramble off the bed again, and dragged it to the other side of the bed fast enough to wrench muscles. He winced in pain, and continued to struggle grimly against the rest of the cables, trying to keep his wrists and remaining leg free of them. The body snatcher remained on the floor, watching him intently, directing the movement of the cables without getting to her feet. Galling, that she should have such control of the powers, so quickly. How the devil had she done it? _He_ couldn't have done this a day after he'd first discovered his powers.

The outcome was really never in doubt. Within a minute, he was lying flat on his back on the bed, arms and legs bound spread-eagled to the bed's legs with the steel cables. He stopped struggling, recognizing that at this point it was worse than useless, as all it would do would be to please her, and stared over at her with hate-filled eyes.

She got to her feet and walked toward the bed, slowly. "You really shouldn't have done that," she said, rubbing her head again. "You _hurt_ me."

"You're the one that wished to have a man's body," he said coldly. "Besides, I'm quite certain you intended to hurt _me_ from the moment you entered this room, if not the moment you stole my body. I don't see myself as having a great deal to lose."

Her free hand fell to his neck, stroking it. "I could hurt you a lot worse than I'd planned," she said, and began to tighten her grip.

"You... might also... kill me," he gasped, not out of fear but because he couldn't breathe. "You're not... experienced... might... accidentally..."

"I might also kill you deliberately," she said, and her hand tightened further.

He couldn't speak anymore, or he'd have pointed out that if she'd wanted him dead, she could have saved herself a lot of time and effort by killing him before she'd tied him up with cables. Desperately he concentrated on trying to breathe, sucking in as much air as he could get. It wasn't enough. The world was starting to darken around the edges when she released him.

"The next time you try to attack me, I'll do far worse than that," she warned.

Very well. The next time he attacked her, he'd make sure she was disabled by it. He breathed deeply, hungry for air, and didn't waste any of his precious breath on a reply.

"Of course, now it doesn't really matter," she said, her voice-- _his_ voice, twisted by her-- dropping. "Too bad for you that you didn't hurt me badly enough to spoil my plans."

That surprised him a little. He'd expected the blow he'd delivered would have made what she clearly intended out of the question for hours. He must be _much_ weaker than he used to be, more than he'd imagined. "I intend to have that body back eventually; I had no desire to castrate it," he snapped back at her, and then realized what he was doing. His pride was hurt by the way she'd defeated him, by the ease with which she'd stolen his body and the fact that, with it, she had near-total power over him. He was justifying his failure, trying to sound more threatening than he felt himself to be. Foolish, that. If he had a chance at all, it would lie in her underestimating him now that he had no mutant powers. He resolved not to answer her goads again.

She unbuttoned the blouse this body was wearing slowly, stroking his neck, his breasts and belly. Not his. He had to concentrate on that. Nothing of his would be affected by this. But he could feel it, and despite the fact that he could see his own body doing this to him, it was very difficult to think of the body he now wore as something completely alien to him. The bra had a front clasp; she unsnapped it and moved the cups off him entirely. "I can see what men like about this," she murmured, cupping this body's breasts in her hand and squeezing, at first gently, then painfully hard. She smiled at him maliciously. "You never expected this could happen to you, did you? To be used for someone else's pleasure? No man ever expects this."

Her misconceptions would almost be funny if she weren't using them as some sort of twisted justification for her acts. Magneto had expected exactly this. There was nothing surprising and nothing new about any of what she'd done to him thus far, nothing he hadn't endured before. He felt humiliated, yes, and enraged at his own helplessness, but it wasn't as if he'd never felt such things in his life. _There is nothing you can do to me that hasn't been done already, in worse ways._ It was ironically one of his greatest strengths in his chosen career-- no matter what happened to him, he'd always endured worse.

The denim skirt was apparently a wraparound-- she untied it and peeled it entirely away from him, leaving his legs exposed completely. With the clogs off, his feet were bare as well. The underpants were scanty and had Velcro side fasteners, so she was able to peel them away as well without having to untie him. Magneto realized that she'd intended to do this when she'd gotten dressed in the morning-- she might not have known _he_ was the mind she'd entrap in her body or that his body would be the vehicle for her to do it, but she had gotten dressed with every intention of taking a male body and raping her own. The thought sickened him. How many others had she done this to, or was he the first?

She removed his own clothes from the body she'd stolen the hard way, using stolen power to undo the buttons but apparently unaware that the entire suit was made of metallic fibers, such that she could simply disassemble it and cause it to fall off. Presumably her control over his powers extended to obvious magnetic operations-- moving steel cables, driving a car forward-- but she didn't yet seem to know the non-obvious ones.

He was cold, with all but his arms naked in the chill of the basement, but that was preferable to the warmth of her body heat, when she climbed on top of him. Her weight was oppressive on him, making it hard to breathe, since of course she wasn't considerate enough to take her weight onto her elbows. He felt her fingers probing his new female anatomy-- a very strange sensation, not quite analogous to hands on the male equivalent-- and then her penis penetrate and start thrusting, a sensation of painful stretching and friction. It was not quite as painful as what he'd expected and remembered, probably because female anatomy really was designed to take this kind of assault better than a young boy's body could. It had been a lifetime ago, but he still remembered being a pretty child in the camps, remembered the terrible bargain he'd made for his life, and the sensation like being torn apart from the inside. As badly as this hurt, it wasn't as bad as that had been. He held as still as he could to minimize her pleasure, gritted his teeth, and endured. At first he stared at her with the stark rage in his face, but it was too obscene to see what looked like his own face contorted with pleasure as she raped him, so he stared at the ceiling instead and imagined killing her.

When she was done, she slid off him, running an entirely too familiar hand up and down the body she'd trapped him in. "I think I really enjoy being a man," she said, her voice still thick with pleasure. "It's so intense for you, and it builds so fast. In my own body it takes forever."

"You might want to consider that most non-psychotic men get even more pleasure out of having _willing_ partners," he said acidly.

"You, a terrorist and mass murderer, are going to give me a lecture on the morality of rape? Don't make me laugh."

"What I have done, I have done for the sake of my people, not for my own twisted pleasure. You have no cause but your own desires."

She released the cables. He sat up and rubbed his wrists, trying to restore circulation to them. "I have a cause," she said. "I've spent my entire life being weak and powerless, at the mercy of men and other people with power. My _cause_ now is to teach those with power what it means to have none. Society grants you men all the power in this world."

"Has it escaped your notice that society also denies mutants any power whatsoever?"

"Society doesn't _need_ to grant you power. Mutants _have_ it. You personally had more power than almost anyone in the world. Now _I_ have it instead. And I intend to use it to do whatever I want."

"How noble an ambition," he sneered. "Someone victimized you, so you plan to victimize others, just because you can."

"That's pretty much it," she agreed. "I wouldn't get on a moral high horse about it if I were you. You've done worse."

"Not for such a trivial reason. And I have never committed rape."

"No, but you've murdered. Does that mean you think rape is a fate worse than death?" she mocked.

"It is a question of motivation. All other things being equal, I would prefer being raped to dying," he said dryly. "However, I have killed only for the sake of my cause, or in self-defense. The ends, to some degree, do justify the means. You have no ends worth speaking of, which makes you far more evil than I."

She shrugged. "Believe that if you want. I'm sure you'll need something to cling to."

There was really no answer he could make to that. He ignored her and set about trying to rub circulation back into his ankles as well.

"You still think you're going to get through this with your dignity intact, don't you?"

That got his attention. He turned his head to face her. "If you expect me to grovel and beg simply because you have the power to kill or harm me, you don't know me very well."

Her eyes narrowed. "A challenge. I like that."

"No you don't. You haven't been doing this long enough to enjoy a challenge. You want me to validate your beliefs by cringing and whining in fear, and it bothers you that I don't."

"How do you know how long I've been doing this?"

"Because you're untutored and naive. Your conversation reflects the fact that you expect the simple presence of your power to have some great effect. I can tell you now, from personal experience, it doesn't. People will be as ready to oppose and defy you because you have power as when you didn't, perhaps more so."

"That's ridiculous. People aren't that suicidal."

"The ordinary man on the street won't oppose you, no. You'll get a higher caliber of opponents. And without my knowledge and tactical skills behind those powers you so prize, they _will_ defeat you. If I were you, I'd play less of a high-stakes game. Give me back my body, and take one of lesser power, one the entire world won't conspire to destroy." As if he wouldn't destroy her the instant he had his body back. But it would hardly do to mention that.

She shrugged. "I don't plan on running out and trying to conquer the world, so I doubt they'll even notice me. We're quite some distance from major population centers here."

"Indeed? Where are we?"

"Nice try." She shook her head. "You aren't as good as you think you are, and you aren't as right as you think you are. I've been doing this much longer than you think. You're just the best prize I've caught." The body snatcher grinned. "In fact, I think I'll keep you."

"Keep me? For how long?"

"Well, that's what I mean by 'keep.'" Her grin broadened. "I killed all the others, you see. After I was done having fun with them, I killed their bodies and jumped back. But who would want to go back to _that--_" she poked him-- "when they could be _this?_" She gestured at herself in his stolen body. "No, Magneto, I think I'm going to keep _you_ forever. Which means I have plenty of time to make you 'grovel and beg,' as you put it. By the time I'm done with you, you will."

On that note, she left, taking the wooden clogs with her, while he was still trying to muster up something more intelligent to say than "We'll see about that" or "I'll die first" or some other cliched defiant comment. What she'd said relieved him on a certain level-- given plenty of time, he _would_ escape, he was sure of it. The reassurance that she wouldn't kill him was good news, from that point of view. On the other hand, it also made it even more imperative that he had to escape. She was right in a sense-- given long enough as a helpless captive, with no one to interact with but his tormentor, eventually even he would break. He was no psychologist, but he'd studied what happens to prisoners. Prisoners confined with other prisoners could maintain their hatred of their captors, as he and his fellows had in Auschwitz, but someone kept in solitary confinement and subject to certain elementary brainwashing techniques would eventually come to identify with and seek to please the captor. His resistance to such things was probably much greater than most people's, but he wasn't so arrogant as to believe he would be completely immune.

So. He had to get away before that happened. Painfully he levered himself off the bed. His wrists and ankles still hurt, and his thighs and hips were bruised, and there were wholly unfamiliar internal pains that might have seriously frightened him if he'd still been in a male body, since in male anatomy they would have to reflect some sort of deep internal injury. In a female body, however, it was probably no more than the aftereffects of a rape. She hadn't been terribly brutal-- he'd survived worse in a body designed to deal with it less well, so he was fairly sure he wasn't seriously hurt. It was simply the unfamiliarity of the pain that was bothering him.

He limped to the bathroom again and did his best to examine himself. As nearly as he could tell, his initial guess was right-- no serious injury, just bruising and soreness. He also had a better chance to examine the amenities the body snatcher had left for her victim. A fairly civil psychopath, from the looks of it-- she had left him toothpaste and toothbrush, a hairbrush, a towel, a washcloth, shampoo and soap. No razor-- at first he thought this was a precaution against suicide, and then realized that it was more likely because women didn't need razors. There _was_ some sort of horrible-smelling depilatory cream that would have been utterly useless against a man's beard, but might do passably on a woman's legs. Not that he had any intention of using it, but perhaps these were actually her toiletries, the things she used on this body when she was occupying it. Most of the items were sufficiently poisonous that he could kill himself with them if he had any desire to, which either indicated she knew more about him than she'd thus far seemed to, or she was really quite naive about keeping prisoners. Just because he would never resort to suicide to escape captivity if there was any other alternative didn't mean other men might not try.

A long, hot shower with plenty of soap and shampoo did not quite wash away the humiliation or the tactile memory of her hands on this body. But it helped. Afterward he dressed-- the only available clothes were the ones she'd been wearing when she captured him, which was deeply annoying. He despised the long skirt, most especially after having tripped and tangled in it so many times. But it was chilly in this basement, this late at night. The stone floor was particularly cold on his bare feet, and he rather wished she hadn't taken the clogs, though wooden shoes that wouldn't stay on his feet were an uncomfortable reminder of the camps.

Systematically Magneto explored his prison, ignoring the pain of bruises as he searched everywhere for any other conceivable exit. There was none. Part of the floor was packed earth, so it was possible he might be able to dig his way out, but there were no tools in the basement. No old clothes, either, nor old furniture, nor anything except a wall of stacked cans and the items that went with his cell-- the bed, bedclothes, the steel cables she'd left behind, and the bathroom with its toiletries. He might be able to smash the safety glass of the basement windows by throwing cans at them, but the bars didn't look as if he could bend them without specialized tools, even with his own body's physical strength, much less this weaker form. Plus, it turned out he couldn't even reach the basement windows. The windowsill, such as it was, was set just above his eye level, and when he tried to pull himself up to it he discovered quite how feeble this body's upper arms were. He literally could not lift himself off the ground even so much as a fraction of an inch; he could rise to the tips of his toes, but could go no further. When he exerted himself heavily to do so, he ended up with shaking, trembling arms and legs, but didn't get any closer to getting off the ground than before. Physical fitness had obviously not been the body snatcher's forte before she'd captured him.

That brought a malicious grin to his lips. She'd learn the hard way that she couldn't let his body go to pot the way she'd let this one and still expect to use his powers at their full level. Even when he'd been doing the equivalent of desk work in zero gee for two years, Magneto had always made sure he kept his body in shape as a matter of survival. There had been times in the past, before Isabelle had died and he'd focused on world conquest as a reason for living, when he'd grown despondent and escaped into a bottle for weeks at a time. The effect was always the same. When he went long periods of time without exercise, when he gained a significant amount of weight as fat instead of muscle, or when he skimped on dietary iron, his powers grew markedly weaker, and to attempt to use them at higher levels brought heart palpitations, violent headaches and flashes before his eyes. His powers placed enormous strain on his body, and only by being at the peak of physical health could he dare manipulate their upper limits. If the body snatcher didn't take up a physical fitness regimen, she was in for a nasty surprise.

Of course, if he was lucky, she wouldn't _have_ long enough in the body to be surprised that way. He intended to escape as soon as he could, and there was, perhaps, the possibility of rescue. She'd been using his powers in Philadelphia, most likely-- unless she'd been able to operate both his stolen body and her original at the same time while he'd been unconscious, she'd have had to do something about the fact that she'd have been dragging an unconscious woman's body around. Probably hailed a cab, and then killed the driver and took control. Magneto himself had been trying to avoid using his powers in Philadelphia because of the risk of attracting Charles' attention... if she had used them, perhaps she had alerted Charles. Perhaps he would send his X-Men to attack her, and thus find Magneto... but no, no. Charles had _never_ been proactive. It was one of the man's greatest failings-- not only did he think humans and mutants _could_ get along, not only did he think that creating an all-mutant strike force would help humans and mutants get along, but he actually didn't even manage his strike force correctly. Charles had generally never sent the X-Men after him unless he was actually and actively engaged in a plot. If she didn't "plan on running out and trying to conquer the world," as she'd said, Charles might never bother to send his X-Men to investigate. At least, that was the way Magneto's life worked-- the one time he actually _wanted_ X-Men interference, they wouldn't show up. No, he couldn't rely on the hope of rescue. Which was just as well, considering. The X-Men had betrayed him quite horribly last time, Wolverine gutting him while he still had thought they were allies, still remembered the friendship and tried to answer their accusations reasonably. Reason had had no place in that last battle. He didn't want to think about what the X-Men, and Charles, might do with him if he had no powers at all. No, he could trust no one but himself.

So, concentrate on what he needed to do to escape under his own power. This body had to be gotten into shape. He had to learn its limitations, stop overestimating its strength, increase that strength as much as he could, and get a feel for the way it balanced. It felt very odd to walk about in this body, with his center of gravity completely shifted and his gait forcibly altered by the limitations of anatomy. If he did manage to escape, his life might depend on how far and how fast he could run-- the odds that he could defeat her in a fight were not encouraging, given that he didn't dare maim his own body. So he needed to know this body as well as he possibly could, and improve it physically as well as he could, in order to have a chance at all.

Stripping off the skirt -- it would only get in the way-- he began stretching cautiously, something necessary before one began an exercise regimen for the first time. Interestingly, he noted that this body, despite being ridiculously out of shape, was inherently more flexible than his own. He had forced a greater degree of flexibility through his exercise regimens, but his own muscles were naturally enormously tense; he'd always thought that was mostly due to personality, but even now, when he was a captive with no good prospects for escape, under tremendous stress, the physical tension in the body he now wore was less than he usually found in his own. That was a good sign. Not that being flexible would help him fight off someone with his powers particularly well, but it indicated at least that this body wasn't completely without physical advantages.

And it would probably help save him from injury during the inevitable future rapes.

He pulled his mind away from that particular dark contemplation of his future here and back to what he was doing. Since this body _was_ out of shape, he couldn't overdo it. Half an hour of stretches, then another half hour total, interspersed with several five-minute rests, of simple calisthenics-- pushups, sit-ups, the like. He tried benchpressing a wooden board with cans stacked on it to create a weight, but the cans kept falling off. There wasn't much beyond that he dared do without knowing when she'd next feed him; exercise increased appetite for a reason, and if he didn't get food reasonably soon, he would suffer for every bit of exertion. Of course, he had endured such suffering before, but that wasn't any reason to set himself up for it if he didn't have to.

With nothing left that could be constructively accomplished tonight, and his hair mostly dry, he stripped off his clothes, used a small amount of soap to wash them in the sink, and hung them in the bathroom to dry overnight. There were enough blankets that he shouldn't be cold, and quite aside from the fact that he was used to sleeping in the nude, if he was going to be allowed only one set of clothes to wear, he was going to have to establish a routine of washing them at night or they'd get unbearably filthy.

He took a can with him to bed, putting it under the pillow. Since she'd taken the clogs, he wanted something else that might conceivably work as a weapon. Not that he seriously expected to be able to use it, but the fact that she hadn't disassembled his body's clothes _might_ mean that she hadn't yet learned to see the fields, or not well, anyway. He would be able to see a metal can coming if he were in his body, but perhaps she wouldn't. Or perhaps he could stun her and then use the can. She'd never leave him an opening for a groin strike again, but unless she bound him every time she raped him, sooner or later she'd leave him an opening for an eye strike, and then while she was stunned he could hit her with the can. Or she'd simply be too distracted to pay attention to him grabbing a can and hitting her with it until it was too late. It was probably the best chance he had, anyway.

It was much harder to sleep this time than it had been before, when he'd been so exhausted and nauseous. This time he lay awake a long time, his mind racing, trying uselessly to formulate escape plans. He knew better; he needed sleep more than he needed to waste time running down the same tracks he'd gone over and over today, especially when he had a weapon and a plan that might conceivably work already, but it was almost impossible to stop himself. And when he finally did sleep, it was restless and nightmarish.

* * *

It was the sound of the door unbolting again that dragged him fully out of his uneasy sleep. He ached far worse than he had last night, this body reacting to both the rape and the unaccustomed exercise. Light streamed in through the basement window, indicating it was probably about 10 am or so. He started to push aside the covers, and realized belatedly that he'd made a tactical error in leaving his clothing in the bathroom, out of reach.

The body snatcher came downstairs with food on a tray, floating behind her. Her eyes lit up when she saw him. "You got ready for me? How sweet of you!"

Magneto clenched his fists in fury, fighting not to make a retort. She knew perfectly well he wasn't naked for her sake; to say anything would be to admit that she'd humiliated him. But the body snatcher continued, as the tray set down on the floor. "Why don't you just push those blankets aside? You haven't got anything I haven't seen before; I used to occupy that body, you know."

"You're welcome to do so again any time you wish," he said coldly.

"No, no. I plan to occupy it in an entirely different sense," she said, grinning. She walked over to him and tugged the covers off. "Did you know that 'occupy' used to be a euphemism for sex a few hundred years ago?"

"I don't collect historical euphemisms for sex, as I don't share your rampant obsession with the subject."

"'Rampant obsession.' I like that." She stroked her groin through the pants-- they weren't still his pants; she had changed clothes. "It's rampant, all right. You know, I have to thank you again for providing me with this body. I'm sure one of your girlfriends must have told you this, but you're pretty well hung. I like that."

"I don't tend to date women with such crude mindsets," he retorted.

"What, well-hung is crude? Your tender sensibilities would just shrivel up and die at what _I_ consider crude, then."

"I suppose someone must play the role of uneducated lout. And you do have a well-suited personality for it."

She laughed. "Am I supposed to be insulted?"

"In an ideal world, yes."

"This isn't an ideal world." She pushed him back against the bed, leaning on it herself and looming over him. "Though it'll get a whole lot more ideal after I fuck you." She started to undo her pants, kneeling over him.

Magneto waited until her pants were partially off, restricting her physical movement. Her shields weren't up, and he wasn't quite able to believe she was leaving him this opening again, but he wasn't going to waste it. As soon as she was vulnerable, he struck, bringing his leg up into her groin. She folded with a hoarse gasp, falling to the side, trying to pull away, but that still left her open for another strike. He punched her in the groin, and when she weakly squirmed away, trying to block him, he hit her in the stomach, as hard as he could manage. The pain didn't seem to be forcing her out of the body. Too bad about that. He grabbed the can from under the pillow, and swung it down at her head, but it jerked out of his hand and went flying before it got there as she instinctively summoned power. All his hair stood on end in the center of the magnetic field, but her control was crude in her extremity of pain, unable to affect a human body. He hit her in the stomach again, and in the crotch again, and then slammed his fist into her temple as hard as this body could, several times. There was no need to hold back out of fear of damaging his own body-- this body simply didn't have the physical strength to permanently damage that one. He could use every bit of strength this body had in disabling her, and he did.

By the time he was done he was breathing hard, his muscles ached fiercely, and his hand hurt like the devil, but she was unconscious. Her pulse was still strong when he checked it, but she was plainly down for the count. Good. He ran to the bathroom, ignoring strained muscles, grabbing the still slightly wet clothes and throwing them on as he ran up the stairs. There was no time to manage putting on the bra or underpants-- the only reason he even bothered with the clothes themselves was the fear that running around outside in a nude woman's body would be an invitation to assault by other parties. The door to the kitchen was open, and from there it was three steps to the back door, and outside.

The house was nestled into the woods on the top of a hill, enclosed on three sides with no signs of neighbors. The home of a serial killer. He wondered if the ones she'd bragged about killing were buried on the property. The taxi was still sitting on the pebbled driveway, but the engine had been partially disassembled-- no doubt she'd been experimenting with the powers. So, no getaway car. He'd have to do this on foot. The driveway, unfortunately, was covered with small rocks. Magneto ran parallel to it, skirting it on grass and then the edges of the woods, with long, wild grasses lashing at his running legs, until the pebbles ran out and the road became bare dirt. That, he could run on. It wouldn't be pleasant-- these feet had few calluses, and those not of the sort conducive to running barefoot outside-- but he'd managed worse. He hiked the skirt up to above his knees with one hand and went into full bore down the hill, running awkwardly because the center of gravity was lower and his arms kept flailing at his sides without the weight he should have to balance him. It didn't matter. The muscles he'd strained yesterday were badly pulled with the length of his stride, far too long for what these legs should naturally do, and the bruises she'd left inside him with the rape ached as the running muscles tugged at other muscles, connected to the ones inside. There was a painful stitch in his side. He was getting out of breath. None of it mattered. He sprinted down the dirt road as fast as this body could go, using the downhill slope for momentum, almost falling over with the imbalance of it but keeping onward, until the dirt road and the hill both ran out and he skidded out onto paved road.

It was a narrow road winding through the woods, one lane on each side with a double gold line running down the middle. No cars passed by here. A rural road in the middle of nowhere. Inwardly Magneto cursed. His plan had been to hitch a ride with the first passing car, figuring that a disheveled and desperate-looking woman shouldn't have difficulty inspiring sympathy and aid, but this road looked largely untravelled. He glanced both ways, but the road simply disappeared into the trees, bending out of sight, on both sides. Arbitrarily he went right, figuring that if he was fortunate, she'd have neighbors in this direction, and instead of hitching a ride perhaps he could escape onto their property and ask their aid. They'd think she was her. He could always claim a dangerous crazy had attacked him-- no, she was a killer; if he said that they'd send the police and she'd kill the police with ease. If he said a dangerous mutant, though, people like the Avengers might be summoned and then how would he get his body back? Perhaps he could just hide. He ran down the road, unable to go quite so swiftly this time since he was no longer running downhill. By now his breathing was coming in labored gasps. This body was _not_ used to running. It wanted to slow to a walk and cool down. Magneto had other plans, and drove it as ruthlessly as he would his own. He had to get off the road and to safety before she--

The hair on his arms stood on end. Static electricity lifted this body's hair and tangled it into his face. The smell of ozone, as familiar a scent as his own, tinged the air. Desperately he glanced up, and saw her hovering in the air, some distance behind him on the road.

How had she recovered so fast? He probably would have, but that was a function of his willpower and experience-- wasn't it? Was it only his body that allowed him to recover so quickly from being beaten into unconsciousness? She couldn't have willpower equivalent to his, or nearly the experience he had in being physically attacked. Magneto threw himself to the side of the road, hoping against hope that she hadn't seen him yet, hoping he could hide in the woods and she would pass by, never noticing--

No. The tingling and the static electricity increased, and then something hard and heavy and agonizingly painful hit him in the back, and he fell. The blow winded him, and bruised his spine and the muscles of his lower back badly. When he tried to force himself back to his feet, to keep running, he couldn't get up. He could see what had hit him, a can of green beans, rolling up against a bush to lie there uselessly. Frantically Magneto crawled forward, half-dragging himself by the arms, willing himself to move, to escape into the woods where he could hide from her.

He heard her land behind him, and rolled over to face her. She was glowing. Quite aside from the fact that she would undoubtedly wish to punish him for hurting her and trying to escape, he realized suddenly that she might be unaware that she was charged, that simply touching him now might electrocute him. It also meant that he had no effective way to fight back-- he'd planned to try to kick her, the only move he could manage from his position, but with her charged it would certainly hurt him worse than it would hurt her. He tried to back away, as best as he could when he couldn't stand up. "Wait-- don't--"

"I warned you," she said harshly, leaned down, and grabbed his arm before he could pull away.

Magneto had never actually experienced an electric shock. Even when he'd been young, before he'd manifested his full power, his body had absorbed electricity and converted it into personal energy; he'd found that out the hard way, by being thrown into the electric fence by Nazi guards who'd expected to see him die for their amusement, and were themselves rather shocked to see him survive it. He had inflicted this particular pain on others without ever knowing quite what it felt like. Now he knew. It was just like it had been when the child Kitty Pryde had disrupted his natural magnetic field by phasing through him, except much, much worse. He felt himself convulsing as a rather distant awareness through an enormous amount of pain, and when the pain subsided, his body was still stunned, numb, twitching and unwilling to move, with a sensation like pins and needles throughout him.

The body snatcher pulled him to his feet while he was still convulsing, and then threw him to the ground again, face down. She stepped on his head, grinding his face into the dirt. He was still too numb to move, to even try to struggle, when he felt his wrists and ankles being bound together behind his back by something, most likely the steel cable again. He tried to breathe, but all he could get was dirt. Her foot released his head, and the power picked up his hog-tied limbs, levitating him and turning him to face her. Now he could get air, at least. He breathed raggedly, the body still spasming and twitching in the aftermath of the shock.

"That was good," she said, hissing angrily. "That was very good. None of the others ever even _tried_ something like this. I hope you're glad of how far you got, Magneto, because you're never going to get that far again. And you're _going_ to learn not to try to hurt me."

"You could try... protecting yourself better," he said, his voice still weak.

She hit him. It was a hard, solid blow, dizzying him further. And then she shook her head. "No, no. You probably get beaten up on all the time. Big occupational hazard of being a supervillain, right? We're going to think of something else to teach you not to fuck with me." She reached her hand under the skirt, sliding her hand between his thighs despite his best efforts to keep his legs pressed together. "No undies? That turn you on?" The power pulled his bound ankles back sharply, bowing him-- he gritted his teeth to keep from screaming at the pain this caused his bruised back-- and forcing his legs apart under the skirt. The body snatcher slid two hard fingers into him, probing him roughly, and then shocked him. As he gasped with the pain, fighting not to cry out, she let him drop to the ground, where she kicked him in the stomach. When he managed to twist onto his stomach to prevent her from kicking it again, she yanked his skirt up and drove a booted foot between his legs in a vicious kick.

The pain was not as bad as if he'd had a male body and she'd done that, but this was rather like saying that the pain of being beaten senseless was not quite as bad as the pain of being burned alive. It was true, but awfully little comfort for the victim of the beating. Her power lifted him again. "There's a lot more where that came from, but we'd better get you home before we start your lessons. Can't have someone coming along and seeing the evil Magneto beating the crap out of some poor defenseless woman, after all."

She kept him turned face down as they flew back to the house, and the pain of having all his weight coming down on the bindings that held wrists and ankles together, as well as the cruel strain on his damaged back, was almost enough to make him black out. He fought to remain conscious as she carried him downstairs, where she undid the ties that held the wraparound skirt on and pulled it off him. Still levitating him face down, she forced his knees apart and stepped between them. He expected rape, and wondered how she could even _think_ of sex after he'd hit her in the groin several times. But she was, apparently, not ready for that just yet-- she played with him, using her fingers to probe all his exposed sensitive places and deliver occasional sharp shocks for several minutes. Then she flipped him over, undid the blouse, and squeezed and fondled his breasts for a bit, pinching and shocking the nipples. Involuntarily he jerked with the small shocks, his muscles convulsing and pulling against his bonds hard enough that he'd likely end up with bruises on wrists and ankles. He was breathing in short hoarse gasps, all his concentration on fighting not to scream.

She turned him over again, dropping him face down on the bed, and pulled the blouse off, bunching it around the bindings on his wrists. Then she released the bindings, allowing his legs to drop to the bed, pulled the blouse all the way off his arms, and flipped him onto his back again with physical strength. He was too weak from the shocks to resist her. The cable she'd used to bind him, and the rest of the ones that had remained behind in this room, rose up, locked to the bedposts and then around his wrists and ankles again, pulling him spread-eagled.

"Now," she said, "I'm going to go take a nice, long, hot shower and take some pain medication for these bruises. When I get back, we're going to get into your lessons on What Not To Do. I want you to spend the time until then thinking long and hard about what a stupid fucking move that was, and how completely useless it was, and how badly you're going to hurt to pay for it."

She left. He lay quietly for several minutes, breathing, regaining air and strength. When he felt he'd recovered sufficiently, he started to try to work his wrists free, pushing aside the fear of what would inevitably happen if he couldn't. Unfortunately, the cables that bound him were not cuffs-- he could have possibly dislocated his hand to slip out of cuffs, a trick he'd heard about but never actually had opportunity to try. The cable was rather more like rope, wrapped firmly around the wrist, chafing the skin, but magnetically welded to itself rather than knotted to form the bond. Even if he chafed against the metal hard enough and long enough to draw blood, the lubrication still probably would not allow him to slip free. The cable bound the wrist tightly enough to constrict it, to slow circulation to the hand, and when he tugged as hard as he could the cable did not slip up to the lower edge of his hand and catch there-- it stayed put where it was around his wrist. The other side was no better.

There were bonds you could work your way out of if you struggled, and there were bonds you were stuck with. These were plainly the latter. Which meant he wasn't getting out of this.

_She won't kill me. She said she plans to keep me alive._

That didn't prove anything. She'd said that before he'd attacked her. What reason did she have to keep him alive? If she needed this body alive, perhaps that would be sufficient reason, but if it were only that she wanted him alive to play with while she ran about with his powers... that probably wasn't enough reason for her not to kill him, after what he'd done. Surely she would realize, now, he was too dangerous to let live.

No. No, he couldn't think that way. If she killed him, she killed him, and there was nothing he could do about it, but he had to assume that wouldn't happen. He had to assume he would live, and focus on getting out of this.

The minutes dragged on. He kept looking at the window to try to gauge how long it was. Hours. The cables were not pulled so tight as to strain his muscles further-- he had a tiny bit of motion range. But they were wrapped closely enough around his flesh to be limiting circulation. He couldn't feel his hands or feet anymore. And he was thirsty. Dear God but he was thirsty. He hadn't had anything to drink since waking up this morning, and the exertions he'd gone through had left his mouth parched and sore. Oh but what he would not give for a glass of water right now. To make matters worse, he could see the food she'd brought him this morning, lying on a tray by the stairs-- soggy cold cereal in milk-- and the thought of the cool milk on his dry throat was impossible to shut out, impossible to stop longing for. He was also hungry-- he hadn't eaten since he was taken captive, and he'd thrown up whatever this body had eaten before that time--but that he could ignore, whereas the thirst refused to be pushed aside. Ironically, he also had to urinate, a need that grew steadily worse as the time wore on. By the time she finally came down the stairs, boredom and dread and physical discomfort had brought him to the point where her appearance was actually a relief. Finally this would be over with.

"Thought about it?" she asked.

"I'm impressed, actually," he said, his voice hoarse and slightly cracked from thirst. He wasn't impressed, really-- disturbed was more like it-- but perhaps if he played a bit to her ego, she would give him more information. It was a trick that he'd realized some time ago worked distressingly often on himself. "I expected you to be unconscious for far longer. And your control of the powers is far greater than I'd assumed. It's obvious that such a simple trick as what I tried won't work on you. How have you gotten such control, so quickly?"

The body snatcher laughed, and fell into his trap. "I've impressed an internationally infamous terrorist killer. Should that make me jump for joy?" She sat down on the edge of the bed. "I get echoes. Anything your body knew how to do, I guess. So I'm not up on the location of your secret bases and your world conquest gizmos, but if you knew how to play the piano, I could sit down and put my fingers on the keys and the fingers would remember how to play, even though I personally don't know shit about piano playing. Good thing you trained so very hard with these powers of yours, huh? Got it all at the unconscious level, the body level, where I can get at it. Thanks."

"Well, in the light of that--" it wasn't very hard to force himself to sound defeated, even though he wasn't a very good actor, and he didn't want to think about why that was-- "it's clear that there would be no point to my attacking you again." He turned his head from her, trying to feign resignation. "You were right the first time. You have me. There's nothing I can do."

She ran a hand up his leg, across his belly, up to breasts sore from the shocks she'd inflicted earlier. "You're right about that. Glad to see you know it."

He turned his head to face her, swallowing his pride. If he could just make her think she had defeated him, if he could just make her think he had already learned his "lesson," perhaps he could get out of this. There was no way to avoid being raped, most likely, but if he could get water and be freed to use the bathroom, that would be enough of a victory for now. And she'd given him information, and he could use it to come up with another plan. All he had to do was humble himself for a moment now. "Please... could you let me free? I won't resist you, whatever you want. I swear it. But my hands are going numb, and I've had nothing to drink all day..."

She looked at him for several seconds. "Oh, sure," she said finally, in an oversolicitous voice. "Of course I'll let you get up and get your drinky-poo. You only tried to beat the crap out of me this morning, but _we_ can let bygones be bygones, riiight?" She laughed harshly, dropping the sugary tone. "You must think I'm either very soft or very stupid, Magneto. Did you think I was just going to _forget_ the lesson I promised you? That after I'd had a chance to shower and relax, I was just going to go, oh, you tried to beat me up but it's okay?"

He dropped the submissive act. "I'd hoped that you'd be big enough to tell when an opponent is beaten, and when you can afford to be magnanimous," he said acidly. "I see I was wrong. You are simply a thug."

"Oh, right. Advice on how to be a good supervillain, from a past master? I'm sure you were always so generous to your enemies when _they_ were beaten. That why you never conquered the world, huh?" Her hand fell on his breast, squeezing painfully, twisting the nipple cruelly between her fingers. "I thought I had you beat this morning. You proved otherwise. So I'm not going to take for granted you've learned _any_ lessons till I teach them to you."

With that, she channeled electricity through her fingers into the nipple she was tormenting, shocking him badly, far worse than what she'd done this morning. He gasped, jerking in his bonds, pulling every muscle painfully again. When he could speak again, he said, "You don't... know what you're doing. Even if... you know how... you don't know the limits of what's safe. Electricity is dangerous, woman. You could end up killing me by accident."

"You said that last time. You're really convinced I don't want you dead."

He tried to shrug, but with his arms bound over his head to either side of the bed, it was pretty much impossible. "If you do want me dead, no doubt you'll kill me. But if you don't want to kill me, I'd rather you didn't by accident."

She laughed. "You're right. I don't want you dead. So let's find out the limits of your tolerance gradually, shall we?" Her hand toyed with the other breast. "Nipples are extremely sensitive, especially for women. But then, you probably figured that out already. So if you can take it there, you can take it anywhere else."

It was like Zaladane again-- torturing him for personal amusement, reveling in what she'd taken from him. Except that against Zaladane, he'd had allies, and some slight hope of rescue. Here he had nothing, no powers, no allies, not even the physical mobility to escape. Nothing but his own strength of will, and his pride.

He had no clear idea of how long it went on. The thirst and the hunger and the numbness in his extremities disappeared into the welter of pain. The pressure in his bladder solved itself a different way; he'd known that would happen, known there was no way to avoid it with the convulsions the electricity was inducing, but knowing was no antidote for the sick humiliation. Curiously fastidious, she stopped the torture to get a washcloth and towel, cleaned him off with an expression of disgust, and put the towel underneath him. Then she returned to her experiments, slowly increasing the intensity of the shock with each terrible pulse.

Desperately he fought to keep from screaming, and only later realized what a fool he'd been to do so. She was testing his limits. He should have let her see his agony, shrieked, begged for mercy, feigned unconsciousness, anything to make her think the intensity of the pain and damage caused by the shock was worse than it was. But his pride was too great, and it went against everything he'd been trained in by his harsh existence. In his experience, weakness caused people to hurt you worse; in Auschwitz, if you cried out or complained, you were likely to get shot outright. Only those who could grimly endure would survive. So he'd held out as long as he could, biting back his cries of pain until the agony became too much for him to do so, trying desperately not to writhe, to fight the convulsions and hold as still as he could. Eventually he realized that this left her with far too close a notion of what his upper limits actually were, but by the time he realized this, he was already pushed to the point where he couldn't stop screaming, and it was too late to do anything at all.

At some point she seemed to decide that playing with his nipples was boring, and moved down to lower, even more sensitive regions. Causing him pain there seemed to excite her tremendously; shortly after moving the site of the shocks, she stripped naked and climbed atop him. His first reaction was actually an exhausted relief, assuming that while she was raping him, he would be spared the shocks.

For the first time in a very long time, Magneto's imagination for horrors failed him. He was taken totally by surprise when she channelled electricity through her genitals and shocked him inside. His convulsions and hoarse screams seemed to thrill her, and she did it again, and again, her face twisted with sick pleasure, until he was clinging to consciousness by the barest of threads, convinced that the torture would kill him, and desperately trying to hang onto consciousness as a way of staying alive. By the time she finished, he was utterly lost in a haze of pain, having forgotten where he was, why he was hurting, and very close to forgetting why he was trying to survive this.

Slowly he came out of his pain-wracked daze to find her stroking his body and the steel cables undone. Not that it really mattered that she'd untied him. He literally could not move; the convulsions against the unyielding steel had strained every muscle he had, and completely cut off the circulation to his hands and feet as well.

"Why?" he whispered hoarsely, barely audible.

"I told you," she said. "Because I can. And I like it."

She stood up. "Maybe next time you'll think twice about hurting me," she said. "Although that was so much fun, I'm not sure I'd need an excuse to try it again. You wouldn't believe how good it feels to have someone going into spasms under you like that."

_Most men achieve the effect by pleasing their partners, not torturing them until they're half-dead_

, he wanted to say, but his voice was far too hoarse, and he was too weak, and it didn't matter anyway. She liked being a monster. It didn't bother her in the slightest.

Several minutes after she left, he was able to force himself to move. It was hideously painful, but at least now the muscles were obeying his commands, and they weren't going to get any less stiff and strained if he just laid there. He crawled into the bathroom and ran a bath as hot as he could stand it. As the tub filled, he reached up to the sink, grasped the cup in numb hands, and filled it with water from the tap, again and again, downing five glasses before he felt he'd drunk enough. Then he painfully pulled himself up over the lip of the tub and into it. The hot water did something toward soothing his tortured, overstretched muscles and his bruised back, but couldn't touch the terrible pain in his genitals and breasts, and couldn't begin to wash away the feelings of humiliation and helpless rage.

He stared down into the water. Fool, to believe he could escape so easily. He was used to being one of the special ones, the people who were hard to kill, hard to imprison, hard to defeat. To be held captive, tortured, used as a plaything, with no realistic hope of escape... that was something he would have sworn could not happen to him. Not anymore. It didn't fit the definition of Magneto, the self he had carefully built for himself over the past twenty years. Something like this belonged to his childhood, when he was easily rendered helpless, when he was only an ordinary human with an ordinary human's resources.

As he was now.

No. He shook his head, denying that. It was different now. He had extensive combat experience, had endured and survived horrors that had killed countless others. Even without his powers, he was still formidable...

...was he? Against an opponent with his powers? When had an ordinary human, however well-trained, ever defeated him? It had generally taken entire teams of super-powered beings to take him down...

But he didn't want to take her down. Once he was free, he could worry about that. All he wanted to do was escape...

...but his certainty that he'd be able to do that had dissipated, and he couldn't recapture it. He hurt so much, and she hadn't even worked up a sweat defeating him. He had hit her as hard as he could, taken advantage of her vulnerability, done everything he could... and not only hadn't it worked, it had nearly killed him. The hot water eased the aches only slightly. It would be sheerest agony to try to exercise in this condition... and she'd liked it. She might do it again, any time she wanted to. The slightest desire to gratify lust, in a body with, as he well knew, entirely normal male appetites, and she could do it again. Two or three times a day, if it pleased her to.

He couldn't take that. He _wouldn't_ take that. If there was truly no hope of escape, nothing but the unbearable pain as often as she wanted to inflict it, he really did see no other way but to kill himself. He'd always thought of that as the coward's way out... but if that was all there was for him...

No. He wouldn't consider that. Not yet, anyway. He had suffered a setback; these things happened. He had been tortured; well, he'd been tortured before, and he'd lived. There had to be a way to escape. He just had to survive long enough to find it... and prevent her from damaging him as she had tonight. It would take some days to heal from this; he couldn't allow her to do it to him on a regular basis if he was going to be in any condition to escape.

Which meant open defiance was no longer an option.

The thought sickened him. It was not what he did, not _him_. The Master of Magnetism did not cooperate with his enemies, did not degrade himself to escape pain.

But Erik Lehnsherr had.

Water dripped from his hair and nose as single drops, disrupting the smooth surface of the water. The woman's body that stretched out before him in the water dissolved and rippled with the drops, changing and blurring. It was alien to look at, but the pain it felt was his pain. The sore overstretched muscles, the agony in its particularly female parts, these were not alien sensations. They weren't familiar, but they were as much a part of him as his magnetic senses had been, and those hadn't been familiar all his life. The awakening of his sexuality, the awakening of his mutant power, the transformation from an old man to an infant and then to a man in the prime of his life... all had involved shifts in his self-definition, transformations of who he was, accompanied by sensations unfamiliar and yet very much a part of him.

He couldn't be Magneto. Magneto was nothing without his powers. That self, that collection of strategies for life, involved being powerful, virtually undefeatable, dangerous even when beaten within an inch of his life. He could afford to be defiant, uncooperative as a captive, since who could hold him for long? That no longer fit, and wouldn't until he got his body back. The arrogance that had characterized Magneto was only going to get him hurt. And Magnus was the same as Magneto, only slightly more human, less a facade of invincibility. No, he'd been cast back to being Erik again, the name he had dispensed with as belonging to his human self, the person who could be victimized by Nazi evil and who couldn't even save his daughter's life. The helpless man, the man who'd had to resort to begging, lying, stealing, even prostitution, to stay alive. That was who he was now.

And he hated it. But there was no other way. Pretending he was still Magneto was a luxury he didn't have if he didn't want to be tortured into immobility again.

Slowly, painfully, Erik climbed out of the tub and dried himself. He was still very weak from the effort his muscles had expended in straining uselessly against his bonds during the torture, and he still hurt terribly, but the hot water had loosened things up enough that he could stand up, even get dressed. Clearly he no longer had the luxury of being able to go naked, and besides, the cellar was especially cold in contrast to the hot water. He managed not to stagger as he walked back into the bedroom.

The food was still there, a congealed mass of green that had turned to a porridge-like consistency. It was some awful ultra-sugary concoction for children that had turned the milk bright green and tasted like it could bring on an instant diabetic attack. He ate it ravenously, and drank down all the milk, licking the bowl to make sure he'd gotten everything that was remotely edible. The sugar on his empty stomach hit like a drug, making him restless and twitchy, desperately needing to move despite the pain it caused to do so, and he used the sugar high to do some exercises. There wasn't much he could do, aside from basic stretches-- he hurt too much. Trying to do just one sit-up brought a wave of nausea as his stomach muscles, abused from the convulsions, informed him of exactly how unwilling they were to contract. Running was a little more successful, but there was little room to do it in-- he ended up half-running, half-staggering to one end of the room, slamming against the wall with arms out, pushing back and reversing to repeat it. Not a great exercise, but it was something.

Predictably, the sugar rush wore off and left him exhausted, shaky and hungry. Erik crawled back into bed to conserve his energy until she fed him again. Hopefully it wouldn't be sugar this time.

* * *

In fact, she was not demanding about the second feeding -- the position of the sun indicated it was perhaps 4 or 5 PM when the door opened, the tray with empty cereal bowl levitated up the steps, and a second tray levitated down, to set down on the floor of the cellar. Two open cans of dog food, stale and petrified Italian bread, and half a bar of moldy cheddar cheese constituted his lunch. The intent was probably to humiliate him, but it failed miserably; Erik could still remember when a chunk of bread this size was a prize to be coveted and meat, any meat, was a delight unheard of. The dog food tasted terrible, of course, but that wasn't the point. It was meat, and under circumstances like this, he couldn't take meat for granted. The bread became edible, though still not tasty, when he got a cup of water from the bathroom and soaked pieces of the bread in it until they became soggy, and after he used his fingernails to scrape the moldy parts off the cheese, the largely intact interior was actually very good. Overall it was actually a better meal than the sugary cereal, satisfying his hunger more, although it didn't taste as good. Something his wealth had largely managed to conceal from others was that, although he enjoyed good food and ate well whenever he could, which was most of the time, in fact Erik could and would eat anything that wouldn't make him ill if he had to. It was impossible for him to entirely take food for granted.

There was little to do in the cell-- more exercise, more napping, more useless exploration, and somehow he managed to kill time until the body snatcher came down the stairs with what appeared to be dinner, around 9 PM. He tensed immediately. The food was something he was looking forward to, but he was already conditioned to expect pain and humiliation when she entered his cell.

"Din-din," she said mockingly. "You hungry?"

He didn't answer, watching her face, not the food. He might have to give in far more than he wanted to, but he didn't need to play along with obvious attempts to verbally humiliate him.

"Well, if you're not hungry, I can always send it back," she said, and the tray started floating up the stairs.

He'd have let it go, but he needed the food. He could have disregarded the hunger-- he'd gone hungry before-- but that same experience had taught him not to go without food needlessly, and he needed to keep his strength up. "I'm expected to beg for my dinner? Is that it?"

"That's a start," she said.

"Then yes, I'm hungry. Please give me the food."

"I don't know. I don't think that counts as begging. I want to see some serious groveling here."

Erik forced down his pride, hating her. And himself, for giving in to her. "Please. I beg of you. I need food, please." And she had better be satisfied with that, because he wasn't going to do any more than that. He could go without one night if he had to.

"Let's see quite how badly you want it," she said, as the tray lowered to the ground. She knelt, took off a bowl of canned mixed vegetables, and dumped it upside down on the floor. "Eat that, and I'll give you the rest of it."

Again, a transparent ploy to humiliate him. Like the dog food, this bothered him less than it might have. He sat on the floor, folding his legs Indian-style, and picked the vegetables off the concrete with his hands. At some point while he was eating, he realized that the position he was sitting in allowed her to see his crotch, and that she was staring at his underwear. He shifted uncomfortably, suddenly painfully aware again of what she would probably do to him when he was done eating, and changed the way he was sitting so he was more kneeling on the ground. That hurt, but he didn't like being stared at and vulnerable.

After he finished, she grabbed his arm and dragged him to his feet. "You can have the rest of your dinner later," she said, pushing him toward the bed. "This time if you try kicking me in the crotch again I'm going to shock you senseless and then fuck you with the shocks again. I wouldn't try it if I were you."

He was still in a lot of pain from the assault this morning. The idea of enduring another one was almost unbearable, bad enough to make him consider bargaining. "Wait. Please."

"Why should I?"

"I--" His mouth had gone dry. This was sickening him, but he had to do it. He'd been bleeding slightly all day from the injuries he'd received this morning. He had to try to protect himself from worse damage, whatever it took. Erik swallowed and forced the words out. "I have an... alternative proposal."

The body snatcher's eyes widened. "You've got my attention. Go on."

"I... am aware, now, that it's pointless to resist you. I didn't intend to fight you... but I'm--" No. His pride would not allow him to admit that he was still hurting from this morning. He couldn't give her that much satisfaction. Instead he took a deep breath and skipped the justification entirely. "I was wondering if you would accept... an alternative."

"Like what?"

She was not going to make this easy. In fact, she was clearly enjoying his humiliation. "I could perform oral sex on you instead," he said, trying to hide how deeply it bothered him to offer.

"Don't you ever use words like 'blow job'?"

"No."

"Well, I want to hear it. No more of this prissy 'perform oral sex' shit. Make your offer again, but I don't want to hear these faggy weasel words anymore."

"Very well. I could give you a blow job instead. Is that what you wanted to hear?"

"Instead of what?"

"Instead of..." He realized then what it was she wanted him to say. Well, the hell with it. His preferred sexual terminology was less earthy than what she wanted, but he knew the ruder words in English well enough. "Instead of fucking me."

She smiled broadly, her face a little bit flushed. She hadn't yet learned how to use her magnetic powers to hide how ridiculously fast skin that fair would blush or show any sort of excitement. "Still all bruised up from your stupid stunt this morning, huh, poor baby?" The body snatcher laughed. "Sure, I'm game. But no half-assed jobs. Give me a really good blow job, and I'll leave your poor little cunt alone tonight. Do a shitty job, and I'll still fuck you. That sounds fair, doesn't it?" Her voice hardened. "Take off all your clothes first, though. I want you naked."

He obeyed, and did as he had said he would. It was not the first time he'd performed that particular service on a man, though it had been many, many years ago. Since then, he'd acquired considerable experience doing the equivalent for women, and being the recipient himself. Since the body snatcher was in his body, he knew exactly what she would like, because it was what he had liked when women had done it to him. At least, he assumed that was how it worked, and her reaction seemed to bear the hypothesis out. Remembering her warning, he set out to do as good a job as possible, ignoring the nausea and the part of his mind that screamed in horror at what he was doing. He managed to make her cry out, more than once, and by the time he was done she was gasping, sated.

"Well." She ran a hand through his hair. "You even swallow. I'm impressed. You get a reprieve tonight, sweetheart." As she pulled up her pants and stood, she grinned mockingly at him. "Where'd you learn to do that? Your sexual history a bit more checkered than I guessed?"

He shrugged, dully. He hadn't moved from his kneeling position by the bed. "You have my body. I know what I like."

"Good point. Well," she ruffled his hair again, "you're never going to get what you like again. So I suggest you learn to like what you get."

On that note she left the room again. He remained where he was for several long minutes. Eventually he mustered up the willpower to go over to the tray. There was an empty bowl where the vegetables had been, cold macaroni and cheese, and a slice of steak, burnt on the outside and incredibly fatty inside. He ate, chewing the steak methodically, welcoming the taste of cheese and burnt meat and slightly congealed blood to drive out the foul taste from his mouth. He'd completely forgotten how bad the taste was-- when he'd tasted himself by kissing a woman who'd just pleasured him, it hadn't been nearly as rank-tasting as this had been. Maybe circumstances had a lot to do with it. He'd probably have been a lot more inclined to find anything pleasurable while lying with a woman he loved than while being degraded for a captor's enjoyment.

He had to get out of here. The thought that he could fall so low, that he could willingly offer to degrade himself like that to avoid pain, disgusted him beyond all measure. He had cast aside the person he wanted to be, the person he had built himself into, to be the person he had left behind years ago, but his emotions were still Magneto's. Erik had eventually learned to shut off most of the horror and disgust, to accept what he had to do to survive and not to think about it much. Magneto had forgotten how to do that, a persona created by pride. There were things he had done as Magneto that horrified him, but they were crimes against his current moral standards, not bendings of will and pride. And he didn't _want_ to relearn how not to be horrified, didn't want to have such familiarity with degradation that he barely noticed it anymore.

* * *

The next few days passed with the kind of non-time one felt when one was a captive with nothing to do. Erik exercised frequently, showered or bathed twice a day, and slept a lot. The body snatcher fed him three times a day, mostly leftovers, dog food, and the stuff in the cans, and demanded sexual favors at least twice a day, sometimes more. As long as he obeyed her demands, she didn't torture him. It was more bearable a captivity than Auschwitz had been-- no hunger, no forced labor, little risk of death. If it weren't for the rapes, his situation would be almost tolerable, and even they were easier to deal with when he cooperated-- when she didn't bind him, he could shift his body to minimize the pain.

"Not as bad as Auschwitz" did not by any stretch of the imagination constitute "good," however, and thoughts of escape occupied his every waking moment. An inch-by-inch examination of his cell turned up a somewhat rusty nail file, half-buried between the baseboard and the tiles of the bathroom floor. He tried the file on the bars of the cell, but it was softer than they were-- all that happened as he sawed away was that the file itself wore down.

However, the nail file could help him implement a different plan. He had been reluctant to start digging, because it would be obvious. The nails this body had come with were not long by female standards, but certainly longer than his had been, and the extra length made them useful as digging utensils and possible weapons, so he hadn't bitten them short. However, if he'd used them to dig, he'd get enough dirt under them that the body snatcher, if she had any powers of observation at all, would probably notice and ask questions he wouldn't be able to answer. Having a nail file would enable him to get around that. So he rearranged the cans in the back so that they were no longer flat against the wall; instead, they allowed a slender passage behind them to a region wide enough for him to kneel down and dig in the dirt floor, using his hands and an empty can he'd stolen off his dinner tray one night. After digging, he'd bathe and use the nail file to eliminate all the evidence of his activities.

It was slow going-- he couldn't risk being back there when the body snatcher came down the stairs to feed him or demand sex, and her schedule was erratic. Breakfast could occur anytime between early morning and noon, dinner came between late afternoon and long after sunset, and she brought him lunch whenever she felt like it. And sometimes she demanded sex between feedings, so even that wasn't a reliable guide. The only time he knew she would not be coming in on him was an hour or so directly after the rapes. So instead of showering directly afterward, as he had before, he would eat if she'd brought food, and then, without dressing, channel the rage he'd had to force down during her assault into attacking the dirt floor for an hour and a half or so. It usually hurt to kneel on the hard floor and dig after his body was cramped and sore from the acrobatics she demanded, but his motivation to escape was at its highest then, and the shower afterward to wash the dirt from his naked body cleansed her touch away as well.

Still, he couldn't fool himself. At the rate he was able to dig, he'd have a tunnel to the outside of the house in several months, and he was sure he'd go stir-crazy before then. He needed to get outside. He could live in an Antarctic wasteland, or in space, or any number of other hostile environments with recirculated air and somewhat claustrophobic quarters, as long as he knew he could leave any time he wanted. Being trapped in a basement with no fresh air, his only exposure to the outdoors a pair of narrow windows overlooking the dirtline, was driving him mad.

Erik broached the subject with the body snatcher one night, while she was still lying in the bed after raping him, stroking him as if she were trying to pretend he was her lover rather than her victim. "I was wondering if you'd consider a request." He hated asking her for anything, but it was clearly the only way to get what he needed, and at the moment he would rather do a bit of begging than remain trapped here.

"Maybe. If it entertains me to grant it."

"I'm going insane from being trapped down here. Please, could I be allowed outside to exercise on occasion?" If he didn't beg, she wouldn't grant it. His only hope was to entertain her. It didn't make the sound of his diffident plea any easier to bear. "It's not as if I could get away from you, I understand that. I don't expect to escape, I only need fresh air and some free space to run for a little while. Maybe an hour, half an hour, whatever you can manage." Whatever she could fit into her busy schedule of spending outrageously on his credit cards, he thought sarcastically. She'd bragged to him about how his money was financing a complete redecoration of her house. Fortunately, since he'd had a habit of accidentally denaturing his cards, he'd only kept two on his person at any given time, and he was wealthy enough that she could spend to the limit on those cards without significantly impacting his finances, but on principle it galled.

She laughed. "You know, just about a week ago you told me you'd never grovel to me, and now here you are, begging to be let outside like a doggie on a run. Who'd have thought?" There was nothing he could say to that. The body snatcher levered herself up on an elbow and looked at him, running her free hand over his knees and inner thighs. He held himself still, tolerating it. "What do I get in return for this favor?" she asked, grinning.

He stared at the ceiling, not looking at her. "I'd assumed sexual services," he said quietly.

"Nice idea," she said, her hand slipping between his legs, fingers exploring his sore female parts. It was very uncomfortable, but he forced himself not to squirm. This was what he'd bargained for, after all. "Trouble is, you already bargained that away. I can fuck you whenever I like, however I like, and you already do whatever I want because you know I'll hurt you if you don't. So you actually haven't got that to bargain with anymore." An involuntary gasp escaped him as she pinched a particularly sore spot. "No, you'll have to think of something else."

He hesitated. "I could give you the number of one of my other credit cards. One of the ones I wasn't carrying."

"Thanks for the offer. When I run out of what I've got, I'll consider it. But that's not what I want." She withdrew her hand abruptly and rolled onto her back, gesturing with one hand. Several cans rose into the air-- fortunately, not enough to expose his digging work. "I can play games with metal objects until the cows come home. But there's a lot about these powers I don't know. I want you to teach me."

As if he would do anything to help a murderer and a rapist become more powerful. "No."

"Then you don't get to go outside." She smirked.

He sat up, folding his arms over his chest. "Then I withdraw my sexual cooperation."

She looked at him hard. "What the hell is that supposed to mean?"

"I can't stop you from raping me. But I can refuse to cooperate. You seem to get a lot of pleasure out of the fact that I'd more or less voluntarily try to please you. I do that because it makes my life easier, not because I quake in terror at what you can do to me."

"If you don't, then you're an idiot," she said dangerously. "Maybe you need a little reminder of last time you defied me?"

She put her hand on his knee and shocked him. The leg kicked convulsively, without volition, but he refused to cry out. "I don't deny that I fear what you can do," he said hoarsely. "But I have never let fear rule me. You are not the first to threaten to torture me. Do what you will, but remember that if you cripple or kill this body, you'll be trapped in that one forever." She had admitted that to him one night, perhaps unaware of what a weakness she was revealing-- the reason she was keeping him alive was that when she was in a foreign body, the only body she could switch to was her own. "I am over 60 years old. I'll guess you are under 30. As well-kept as my body is, it's not going to last as long as yours could. Kill me, and I'm free of your tortures, but you have just lopped 30 years off your own life." This wasn't strictly speaking true. After Mutant Alpha had made him an infant, the Shi'ar agent Davan Shakari had restored him to adulthood at a physiological age of 30 or so. Physiologically, his own body wasn't much older than the body snatcher's own. But if she didn't know he'd been in the death camps of the Nazis, she probably didn't know the rest of his history either.

"Who's talking about killing you? All I need to do is hurt you."

"Which will, eventually, kill me."

"Not for a good long time."

"It doesn't matter. I will resist until then if I must." Her casual possessiveness toward him, the way she made free with him and expected no objections, her gloating over his degradation and his willingness to beg, all had boiled over and left him with a furious determination. If he died under torture in order to prove that she could not own him, that all she could do was make it worth his while to obey, so be it. He was terrified, and some part of his mind was screaming that challenging her was impractical and stupid, but none of that mattered now. She didn't own him, and she never would, and he would die to make her understand that if he had to.

"All right," she snarled. "Let's see you put your money where your mouth is." She shoved him back down against the bed, pinning him with her weight, straddling his chest with her legs crushing his arms and her genitals thrust toward his face. "Suck me."

"No."

The charge went through him where her legs and groin touched his body, and shot down from his chest to his feet. He screamed, bucking.

"Ready to suck it yet?"

"Guarantee... that I can go outside... and I'll do whatever you ask."

"You're not going anywhere. Suck it or I'll hurt you."

"Then hurt me," he gasped defiantly.

She did. Again and again. At some point his struggles became frantic enough that he was able to buck her off him. He rolled for the edge of the bed, blindly seeking freedom, but he was uncoordinated and weak from the shocks, and it was no effort for her to capture him and bind him.

This time she suspended him in midair over the floor, the cables around wrists and ankles pulling him spread-eagled as if he were stretched on a rack, almost upright. She raped him in the anus, shocking him there while her hands roamed the front of his body, delivering shocks and cruel pinches to sensitive places. He screamed, stretched too tightly by her power and the cables to even writhe with the pain. Over and over she shouted in his ear, asking if he gave in, promising she'd stop hurting him if he'd agree to suck her. When he had breath and presence of mind to do so, he cursed her in reply. The rest of the time he just howled. By now he no longer cared about going outside, but the fact that she would do this to him enraged him. He hated her so much. He would never give in. Repeatedly Erik screamed for her to stop and repeatedly rejected her offer to stop if he'd give in, sometimes in the same pain-wracked breath.

As she became too excited to concentrate on the cables, he fell to the floor, and she threw herself on top of him and finished in a few grunting thrusts. By then he was crying with the pain, hating her all the more for that. He hadn't cried with physical pain since he was a child. Even Zaladane hadn't been able to make him cry, not with physical pain, anyway. Someday she would pay for this. Someday. Oh dear God he hurt, he hurt so much.

For several seconds she lay on top of him, panting. The shocks had stopped, but he was still sobbing weakly. After a moment, she got off him and flipped him onto his back. Through the tears he couldn't control, he glared up at her with as much hatred and rage as he could put into a look.

"Still refuse to suck me?" she asked.

It took a few seconds to understand the question. When he did, he nodded furiously. Yes, he still refused. "Don't... own me," he choked out past the sobs and a voice too hoarse from screaming to talk. "Never... own... me..."

"Let's see about that." She lifted him with the cables and stretched him out on the bed. With her sexual arousal at his pain satisfied, she was able to focus all her attention on torturing him, and did so. Eventually he blacked out. She revived him the first time it happened. The second time, he thought he was dying, and welcomed it. He had won. She could kill him but she couldn't own him. He was free.

* * *

When he woke up, he wasn't anywhere he recognized. It looked like a private bedroom of some sort. He was alone in the room, and he hurt terribly. There was a strong smell of antibiotic cream; when he looked down at his naked body, he could see that some sort of substance had been applied to his nipples and a few other places on his body that hurt very much from the electrical shocks. In one or two places there were even band-aids.

Slowly, painstakingly Erik dragged himself out of the bed and over to the window. This was the second floor. He could see outside; the woods were not far from the house, maybe forty or fifty feet. Directly underneath the window were leafy bushes. If he could get the window open and jump, chances were he wouldn't hurt himself much. At least no worse than he hurt already. Trying to flee the house naked might not be a brilliant idea, but it was summer so he was unlikely to die of exposure, and if he got scratches and bug bites and poison ivy from fleeing through the woods, it would be a small price to pay for freedom. He reached down to the insets in the wooden frame of the window where hands were supposed to go to lift, and started to try to open the window.

The body snatcher came in. Quickly Erik dropped his hands to his sides so it wouldn't look like he was trying to escape. "How do you feel?" she asked, her tone strangely subdued.

That was an amazingly stupid question. He turned and glared at her. "I live, no thanks to your idiocy," he snarled.

"Of course you're alive. I wasn't trying to kill you," she snapped. "Believe it or not, I do have some notion of how much you can take." She walked over to him. He backed up against the window, instinctively trying to get away from her, though intellectually he knew there was no point to it.

"Indeed? And how did you come by this knowledge?" he sneered. "I doubt I'd have known precisely how much electricity a person could survive when I first came to my power, and I suspect I was far less sheltered than you."

"You were there when I did the research, remember? Or did you think I was too stupid to remember how much electricity it took to make you scream without killing you?" Her hands reached out for him. He stiffened, pressing himself against the window, and when she tried to lift him he struggled, pushing away from her. She dropped him.

"Stop fighting me," she said, rolling her eyes. "You'd think you'd _know_ by now you're just going to get hurt if you struggle."

Which was true. He did know that. After what she'd done to him last time, though, her presence was sending a shrieking fight-or-flight response through his nervous system, and it was all he could do to control it, to let her touch him, although realistically he knew that if he fought she'd just overpower him. The body snatcher lifted him again and swung him up to be carried in her arms, like a perverse parody of a man carrying his wife over the threshold. He let himself go deadweight, not helping by putting his arms around her neck or anything else to make her load lighter. Not that it mattered. He knew perfectly well that even without using power, his own body was physically strong enough to carry the one he was in now, no matter what he did.

She carried him down the stairs, through the living room. The furniture looked new and expensive, and there were an absurd number of overpriced knickknacks cluttering every available surface. They were heading in the general direction of the basement door, and he tensed. It seemed obvious that she'd been keeping him in her bedroom, to keep an eye on him while he recovered. Now that he was conscious and clearly not dying, she was going to lock him in his subterranean prison again, and probably rape him while she was at it. If there was any possibility of escape, any at all... but dear God, he hurt far too much to handle a punishment for a failed escape right now. What she undoubtedly planned to do now would be horrible, but he could endure. If he tried to escape, and failed-- and he would fail, there was no way in this condition that he wouldn't fail-- that didn't bear thinking about.

But she didn't turn toward the basement. Instead she headed into the kitchen. The door to the outside of the house swung open under her power, and she walked outside, still carrying him.

Outside. It was somewhat overcast, hot and muggy with the sky mostly a shade of white and the sun visible only as a hazy smear. It didn't matter. He was outside. He took a deep breath, savoring the pollen and the perfumes of flowers and the woodsy smell of trees and the fresh scent of the mown grass. The impulse was overwhelming to leap out of her arms and bolt for the woods, but he knew better. Not only would he never get far, but it would prevent her from ever granting him this much again. He looked up at her face, unable to understand why she was doing this, but her expression was unreadable.

She set him down on the stone stoop. "You win," she said. "Congratulations, Magneto."

He stared at her. "Are you letting me go?"

"No!" She laughed. "Don't push your luck. No, I'm giving you what you asked for. You wanted to go outside, here you are."

Erik had honestly never expected her to capitulate. Had he been in her place and it had been an issue he cared about, he would never have. But then, obviously, she wasn't him, however much she might look the part. He wanted to gloat, to rub her face in her capitulation, the first victory he'd won from her. That would be foolish, though. "Thank you," he forced out, though after the torture he'd endured to get here he didn't feel in the slightest grateful. Or didn't want to feel in the slightest grateful, anyway. It was almost impossible to avoid feeling gratitude for the warm fresh air and the diffuse sunlight and the soft grass under his bare feet. A slight wind stirred, cool and refreshing against his naked skin. Infuriating that he could have fallen so far that this, which he should be able to take for granted, was something he would actually feel grateful for, and grateful toward a torturer and rapist at that.

"I'll give you half an hour every day," she told him. "You can exercise if you want or whatever. Then you pay me, and it had better be worth my time, do you hear me?"

He nodded. "I understand." And promptly pushed that part of his bargain with her out of his head. He couldn't enjoy this properly if he thought about what he was going to have to do to pay for it. Painfully Erik stood, wobbled, fell onto his hands and knees and forced himself upright again. He had to walk. There was no way he could run or do any sort of exercise today, but he knew from harsh experience that he'd heal faster by pushing himself, and he wasn't going to pass up an opportunity to be outside, to walk about unrestricted in an area so much bigger than the cell he'd been living in for over a week now. This would be easier with a walking stick to help support him, but he couldn't find anything that would suit and wouldn't ask the body snatcher for anything now.

The grass was cool under his feet, not cold like the packed-earth floor of his cell. He walked slowly, taking small, painstaking steps, his muscles stiff and terribly sore and not entirely willing to support his weight without protest. Though he knew he wouldn't be able to range very far, he did walk around the corner of the house. The stolen taxi he'd been brought here in was gone, in its place a beautiful, expensive sportscar. The dirt driveway that had led to the house had been repaved with blacktop, flowers planted along either side of it. Clearly she hadn't been lying when she'd talked about all she'd spent on his credit cards.

As he turned to walk back, he noticed that she'd followed him-- which was no more than he'd expected, but the appraising stare she was giving him reminded him suddenly and painfully of his nakedness, and of the price he'd have to pay for this privilege. He shuddered slightly before he could stop himself. Erik was not one to hide from frank appreciation of his body-- if he'd been, he never would have adopted the skin-tight costume he usually wore-- but there was an enormous difference between seeing women, even women he was uninterested in, appraise him when he was incredibly powerful, male and in his own body, flattered by the attention and in no danger from it at all, and having a captor who'd raped him repeatedly look at him like he was something good to eat, while he wandered around outside stark naked. He tried to turn away, tried to forget about her and concentrate on the freedom of the outdoors, but it was too late-- he could feel her eyes burning into him, exploring him as her hands would later. What a narcissist. Did she really think this body was so attractive? _He_ wouldn't have given it a second glance. It was still a little puffy, though the limited diet and the constant exercise had worn away some of the fat, at least. Maybe it was a little bit more attractive now that he'd had it and had been working to improve it for a week, but certainly not worth staring at like that. Why couldn't she find other partners? His body was attractive enough; she should have no shortage of attentions if she wanted them. What was her fetish for _him?_

He couldn't take the suspense anymore. Erik turned around and walked toward her as purposefully as he could given his weakness. "I'm done here for the day," he said harshly. "What would you have from me?"

A smile started to spread across her face. "That eager? You've only been out here twenty minutes."

"I'm tired, and I want to get this over with. Well?"

She reached for him, pulling him in close against her chest, one hand wrapped around his waist and the other running over his body. He couldn't keep from wincing as she touched his breast, with the nipples still aching from the shocks. "Oh," she said, and released him. "Oh, of course, you're injured. It must still hurt a lot." Her tone was solicitous, but he wasn't at all sure he believed it. "I guess if I fucked you now it would leave you in a lot of pain, wouldn't it?"

That much was obvious. If given a choice he'd far prefer to use his mouth right now, and it looked as if perhaps she'd let him. "It would," he acknowledged. "Would you prefer a blow job instead?" The degrading gutter language she wanted him to describe sex acts in still irritated, but he used it because it was what she would accept.

The body snatcher grinned broadly. "Actually, no. I want to fuck you."

She shoved him, and he fell to the grass, twisting to catch himself with his hands. He wasn't fully successful; the impact bruised his hip and leg. "Get on your hands and knees. I'm going to fuck you right here."

He obeyed, breathing deeply, bracing himself for the pain. When she entered, he gritted his teeth until his jaw started to ache, fighting to keep from screaming. She seemed to be trying to cause him pain, deliberately slamming herself against sore spots. Eventually he did scream, which seemed to excite her further and bring harder, more painful thrusts.

She finished finally. He turned over slowly, trying to face her without having to sit down or otherwise put any pressure on his groin. It felt like something might be torn inside. "That's what you get for trying to dictate terms to me," she told him as she got dressed. "You win your little victory, Magneto-- you get to go outside, as long as you do whatever I want sexually. And if it hurts you, too fucking bad."

She carried him inside, down into the basement, and threw him to the earth floor of his prison, knocking the wind from him. He didn't manage to recover and get to his feet until after she'd departed.

In the bathroom, he drank three glasses of water, trying to moisten a throat sore from screaming. Then, as best as he could, he examined himself for damage. He was bleeding, heavily enough that it frightened him. It was possible that it was menstrual blood, but given the brutality of the rape he'd just suffered, that didn't seem like the most likely possibility. But he doubted he could summon the body snatcher by pounding on the door to his cell, and even if she came who knew if she'd allow him to see a doctor? She'd be more familiar with the sorts of injuries women could suffer, and she might well laugh at him and tell him this was nothing, hardly life-threatening, gloat about the mighty Magneto panicking over a little blood. If it persisted until she came to see him again, he'd tell her, but he wasn't going to act like it frightened him. No, mild concern at best, that was the tone to take. Or better yet, ask her offhandedly if she'd expect this body's time of the month to occur now, and if she said no, suggest she get him a doctor, acting like it was her problem and not his.

In the meantime, he found supplies in the cabinet where the other toiletries had been. First he tried a tampon, but with the pain he was in that was simply unendurable. A pad was mildly irritating, but he felt he needed something to keep the blood from running free and couldn't imagine that he'd be able to bandage the actual injuries, assuming the bleeding came from injuries at all. He then went and lay down, dressed only in his underpants since, after the shocks, clothing on his body was irritating and painful, with his feet propped up on pillows to elevate his pelvis and let gravity help stanch the bleeding.

It was difficult to sleep with the pain he was in. He began once again to run over all the possibilities for escape. They were very few. Being allowed to go outside might make his captivity slightly more bearable, but if she continued to demand sexual favors that caused serious pain and some degree of damage in payment for going outside, in the long run it wouldn't be worth it. He couldn't afford to let himself be badly damaged, or he'd never be able to escape.

The thought occurred to him of using the blood to try to write a note and smuggle it out with a doctor-- if he could get her to get him a doctor-- but there were a number of things wrong with that. Write a note to who? Police coming in here would be decimated by her power. Heroes like the Avengers wouldn't be particularly eager to see Magneto get his body back, and while they would probably not recognize him if he didn't tell them the truth, and therefore they would treat him decently, it wouldn't help him a lot if the body snatcher was captured and imprisoned. She would either switch, giving him his own body back but leaving him a captive of the US government, who would undoubtedly take steps to ensure he didn't escape, or she wouldn't, in which case he still wouldn't have his own body. And he refused to turn to the X-Men for help. Not after the fiasco of their last meeting. He had considered them friends and allies, and they had attacked with intent to kill. To say nothing of what Xavier had allowed MacTaggert to do. No, he would never allow himself to be helpless in the hands of the X-Men, either. The body snatcher was almost preferable. She could torture him physically, but couldn't rip his heart to shreds with betrayal.

His Acolytes were dead. His children, last time he checked, blamed him for taking advantage of Wanda's mental breakdown to "force" her to join him-- apparently so charitable a thought as the notion that a father should look after his daughter and give her emotional support when she was mentally ill had never occurred to either of them. Lee had decided that even just being friends with a mutant terrorist was a bit too much of a strain on her hectic lifestyle-- not that she'd be any help anyway. Excalibur might be willing to help-- if he recalled correctly, that team had Shadowcat, Nightcrawler, and Rachel Summers on it, all people he'd parted with on good terms-- but they were in Britain, and he hadn't the faintest idea where, exactly. Besides, he'd parted with Storm, Psylocke and Wolverine on good terms, too, and Wolverine had tried to gut him. No, there was no one he could turn to for help, even if he could smuggle a message out-- which was only what he expected. He'd never been able to rely on anyone other than himself.

What had he missed? There had to be something he had overlooked, some key he could use, some method he hadn't thought of to get out of here. Assuming he hadn't been unconscious longer than a day after the torture she'd inflicted, this was his eighth day of captivity, and he was no closer to getting away than before. He had to focus on that, had to devote the resources of his mind entirely to working out a way to escape, because if he started to think about what he'd just been through or the pain he was in, he would be overwhelmed with rage, and there was no outlet for it. He wanted her dead so badly the hunger choked him-- but even if she was powerless and bound before him, as long as she was in his body he didn't dare seriously hurt her, and he couldn't imagine how to make her switch back if kicking her in the crotch and braining her with a shoe hadn't done it.

* * *

It was late when the body snatcher interrupted his increasingly frustrated and morbid thoughts with dinner. "Lying around in bed? I'm surprised at you. I thought the Ubermensch didn't believe in resting when he could be working out instead," she said mockingly.

He shrugged. "When was this body's last menstrual cycle?"

"Why?"

"I'd like to know whether I'm simply menstruating, or hemorrhaging to death," he said in as off-hand a tone as he could manage.

It worked. Her eyes went wide. "What?"

"Well." He turned to face her. "I'm bleeding, and inclined to think you've caused some sort of internal damage with your little power games. On the other hand, this could be perfectly normal. I don't really care all that much which-- while I don't particularly wish to die, the thought of your stupidity causing the death of your body and trapping you in mine, to die much younger than you'd have otherwise, is actually attractive."

She was over at his side in a second, the tray of food lowering quickly to the floor behind her. "Let me see."

"I can't stop you."

"Take the goddamn panties off and stop being an asshole."

"Or what? You'll hurt me?" He looked up at her with his best sardonic expression. "That would certainly improve this body's health no end."

The body snatcher made a snarling noise and tore the underpants off him, roughly grabbing his legs and pulling them up to allow her to look at his genitals. He didn't resist, though she was ungentle and her fingers on his sore places were quite painful. After a moment she released him, sighing in relief. "That's nothing. I thought you might be reacting like one of the others did."

"One of the others?"

"Yeah, I hurt him pretty bad. Ended up having to kill him and take the body in for medical attention-- I claimed he raped me, and the medical exam confirmed it of course. But that was big gouts of blood. This is barely what I get when I get my period. You're not going to die." She smiled cruelly at him. "Relieved? Or are you so upset with my hospitality you actually wanted to die?"

"Somewhat relieved. I don't want to die, but I'd be delighted to see you dead, and without this body as backup and with my reputation hanging over your head, my death would mean yours as well before terribly long." He kept his voice casual. "Tell me, if I _had_ been bleeding-- 'big gouts of blood,' I think you put it-- would you have killed my body and switched back?"

"Hell no!" She shook her head vehemently. "Where am I ever going to get a body as good as this one? Handsome, strong, well-hung, _and_ one of the most powerful superbeings on the planet. No, Magneto. I told you I'd keep you forever, and I plan on it."

"So you would have allowed your own body to die?"

"No, I'd have taken you to a doctor."

"Ah." He nodded. "Thus begging the question of how such damage was caused, as well as running the risk that someone would recognize you as me. Sounds like a very risky proposition. You must be quite relieved it wasn't necessary."

"It'd almost be worth it, though. If it became public knowledge that 'Magneto' had brutally raped a mutant woman, your rep with your own kind would be shot to hell. People can _respect_ a terrorist, though God only knows why, but even _you_ feel like you've got some moral high ground to condemn rape."

He ignored the second half of what she'd said entirely. "You are a mutant?"

"Do I look like the kind of person who gets the right to go up in space and get superpowers from cosmic rays?" she asked bitterly.

"Stranger things have happened. In the past, I assumed everyone with powers was a mutant unless proven otherwise. Now I try to be more cautious."

"Oh yeah, I'm a mutant. At least I assume so, since I started being able to do this when I was about 16." She grinned ferally. "My older brother used to fuck me when my folks were drunk, which was all the time. Last fucking mistake he made. He was the first one I did." Her expression grew fierce. "I showed _him_ what it was like to be the girl, to be the smaller, powerless one. Then I went and told Mom and Dad what he'd been doing, as him, and then I blew his brains out in front of them. Kinda dumb of me, since I didn't know I'd be able to jump back, but--" she shrugged-- "it all worked out."

Erik hadn't wanted to hear that. He hadn't wanted to hear of anything that made the body snatcher more real, more understandable, abused and human instead of a remorseless born psychopath. Horrified, he asked, "Did they-- what was your parents' reaction?"

"Well, what would _your_ reaction be if your baby boy, the apple of your fucking eye, came up with Dad's .45 and confessed he'd been fucking your daughter, and then blew his brains out?"

"That would never happen to me," he said strenuously. "If I'd been allowed the gift of raising my own children, instead of losing them to others before they were born, I would _never_ have practiced such neglect that any son of mine could rape his sister with impunity-- nor would any child I raised think of such a disgusting idea."

"I'm sure you'd be a peach of a dad, Magneto. You'd be too busy indoctrinating the kids in how to kill humans to let them develop any unhealthy pastimes like raping their kid sister." She sat on the bed. "If it _did_ happen, would your reaction be to beat the shit out of your daughter for driving her brother to do such a thing?"

"They knew you'd killed him?"

"No, of course not. No fucking clue. No, they just knew their precious boy was dead, and they needed someone to blame." She shrugged. "I got the fuck out of there. Didn't kill either of them. My dad died of a nonexistent liver five years later. My mom's still alive. Hooray for me. You see, I do have _some_ self-control."

"People like that should be shot before being allowed to procreate."

"How very pro-eugenics of you. You sure you still aren't into breeding a Master Race?"

He forced down his rage. "If a failure of eugenics produced you, it might be worth considering. And sadly, if you're a mutant you _are_ what I would have called the master race, ten years ago. Another example of how bankrupt my notions of mutant supremacy were."

"Sucks to be you." She got off the bed, the mood of self-revelation apparently past. "Now. I seem to recall you made a bargain with me?"

"I have no intention of reneging. But if you don't want this body to die, and you'd rather not take me to a doctor, might I suggest you avoid anything that might cause more damage?" He sat up. "If you keep tearing at an injury that isn't life-threatening, you might make it such."

"So you don't want me to fuck you? Poor baby scared he's gonna bleed to death?"

"This isn't about what I want. I'm not fool enough to believe what I want matters to you. Yes, I hope you can manage to get your priorities straight for once, since I don't enjoy pain. But if you kill me, it's your problem."

"Seems to me like it would be your problem too."

"It's out of my hands. I won't waste time worrying about what I cannot control. You, on the other hand, _can_ govern your actions... so I suggest you worry."

The body snatcher smiled maliciously, then moved suddenly, pinning him down against the bed with her weight. Her mouth pressed against his, insistent and probing. After a moment of resistance, he went limp, allowing her to do as she wished.

And she released him, grinning broadly. "You really, really hate that, don't you," she said, her face an inch over his, eyes boring into his. "You can try to play casual all you want, but I know there's something inside you shriveling up and dying every time I fuck you. You hate it so much, and there's nothing you can do to stop it."

"Quit gloating and get on with it," he said harshly.

"I tell you what. I got a deal for you." She leaned back slightly, her face no longer quite so close to his and her body no longer crushing him. "You're the one who made a bargain-- you're the one who decided to whore for me in exchange for what you want. This isn't about rape any more, you admitted that last night. I could still pin you down and fuck you if I wanted to, but you promised to sell yourself if I let you go outside. And I did that. So I want you to whore for me."

"I don't understand what you're asking."

She released him completely, sitting down on the bed. "You take the lead. You do whatever you think is going to get me off. And you act like you want to do it, like a real whore. So you can give me a blow job if you want to spare your poor bleeding little cunt, but you better act like you're going to come the moment I shoot in your mouth."

Erik shook his head. "I can take control, that's hardly a problem, but if you want me to pretend to like it we do have a problem. I'm a notoriously bad actor. I very much doubt I could put up a convincing performance if I tried."

"Well, then _you_ have a problem. Because if you can't give me that, I'll just fuck you." She grinned. "If you're so bloody and sore in the cunt, maybe I'll fuck you in the ass instead."

Since that was where she'd electrocuted him last night, he considered almost anything preferable to that. And she undoubtedly knew it. "Very well," he said, sitting up. His body was sore and stiff, and it hurt to move, but it was clear to him what he was going to have to do. "I accept your bargain."

"Goo--"

Before she finished the word, he was on her, pressing her against the bed with the smallest fraction of his pent-up rage and aggression. She wanted him to take control? She could have it. He would dominate her completely, make her writhe and beg with pleasure because he couldn't give her pain, and take whatever pleasure he could from controlling the situation for once. He kissed her as aggressively as she had him a few minutes ago, his hands ruthlessly seeking out the places his most knowledgeable lovers had used to make him lose control completely, when the body had been his. She used power to scoot them both into a better position on the bed, but otherwise let him do as he saw fit.

Erik's sexuality was about as far disconnected from violence as it was possible to go. The things he'd endured in the camps had left him terrified of hurting people as he had been hurt. While he'd been known to be somewhat domineering in bed, he had never understood the concept of the sexual thrill of domination. The only reason he was controlling in bed was that he was controlling everywhere. But his rage had no other outlet, and she wanted him to pretend he liked it, and that meant he had to find a part of himself that did because he couldn't feign enjoyment any other way. And he found it, a core of himself so deeply buried he'd never before acknowledged its presence, which could enjoy dominating an enemy in bed, inflicting pain that was pleasure and pleasure that was pain. He tried things with the body snatcher that he'd always before rejected when a lover suggested them, because he thought they were too degrading to his partner. Her, he wanted to degrade, and for once she let him.

When he was done, his jaw hurt, there was a horrid taste in his mouth, and his muscles ached all the more for being forced into activity, but she'd climaxed twice and he hadn't been damaged any worse, a victory of sorts. She ran her hand down his side, a relatively harmless activity as he had no open sores or damaged skin in that area. There were bruises, but a light stroke hardly disturbed them. "That _was_ impressive. Are you like that in bed when it's by choice?"

He smiled fiercely. "Of course not. That is the way I treat pond scum I happen to be in bed with. If that's what you enjoy, I wonder if it says something about you."

"But you wouldn't have done it if you hadn't thought I'd enjoy it. You wouldn't have dared." She grinned. "So whatever you can say about my sexual tastes, we can say that you have no choice but to cater to them." The body snatcher turned to look at him. "Although, unless you're a much better actor than you claim to be, I think you were really getting into that."

"You misread me."

"I don't think so."

"I do. That isn't the sort of sexual activity I enjoy."

"What kind _do_ you enjoy?"

"The kind with women partners," he shot back.

"So you treat your women partners like that?"

"No, of course not. I treat them with the tender care they deserve. It may be impossible for you to imagine, but some men actually enjoy giving pleasure to women as a sign of affection or love. And no, I will not imitate that for you, whatever you demand."

"Oh, I didn't want it. I liked what you did just fine." The grin grew broader. "In fact, I liked it well enough I think that for once I'll return the favor."

He immediately tensed. If she did to him what he'd done to her, it would hurt, a lot. He'd used levels of roughness that a person who was highly aroused would find pleasurable, and a person who was bruised and injured would find quite painful. The body snatcher laughed, stroking him as she pushed him onto his back. "No, don't get all uptight. I meant it. You gave me a lot of pleasure by doing something I like, so I've decided I'll actually let you come for once, and I'll do it the way you just said you like."

"No." He tried to sit up, to pull away from her.

"No? Did I just hear a 'no'?" She shook her head. "You're not allowed to refuse me, remember?"

"This isn't necessary. I gave you what you bargained for. There's no need to return any favors."

"Why Magneto, I do believe you're scared shitless." She pressed him against the bed. "Why? I've fucked you brutally, and you haven't tried to get out of it-- you just submit and spend all your time trying not to show any reaction. But I actually offer to give you some pleasure in return for once, and you go all panicky. Scared of liking sex with a man's body? Is that it?"

That had nothing to do with it. The idea of being made to enjoy a rape was what he found unbearable. But now that she'd seen his fear, she would never let go of the idea. He damned himself for being so weak, so close to the edge that he'd actually let her see a fraction of how much the idea bothered him. Now there was no getting out of it. "Do what you want," he said dully. "I can hardly stop you. But don't expect me to enjoy it, whatever you do. I'm not the sort of person who finds any enjoyment in being molested against my will."

"We'll see about that."

She kissed him gently, tenderly, sickening him. He'd preferred the brutal kisses from before; they didn't pretend to an emotion that was the opposite of what was really there. Her hands roamed lightly over his body, avoiding most of the sore places. When she kissed his neck, he shuddered involuntarily. As little as he wanted to admit it to himself, part of him _had_ enjoyed what he'd done to her-- he had deliberately tapped into the tiny part of his psyche that _could_ enjoy dominating an enemy that way-- and despite the fear and disgust he felt, he was still keyed up from that. It had been a very long time since anyone had touched him with intent to give pleasure. He tried to hold himself still, to show no reaction whatever she did, but he'd never been nearly as good at hiding pleasure as hiding pain.

Instinctively he flinched as she touched his clitoris, conditioned to expect a shock. None came, and the touch was gentle. But even when she was making an effort to be gentle, the shocks she'd inflicted on him there last night left him far too sore to feel anything but pain. Erik welcomed that, letting it drive out the arousal he didn't want and couldn't stand. Pain he could endure. Forced pleasure was more than he could bear.

Then she replaced her hand with her mouth. He jerked and tried to squirm away. That wasn't painful anymore. She grabbed his legs and held them down as she continued, and he couldn't stop feeling it, couldn't keep from relaxing into it as wet warmth soothed and aroused the sore place. "Stop it," he whispered, utterly humiliated, far more broken by this than he would be by any torture. "Please, stop."

She raised her head. "Would you rather I fucked you instead?"

He didn't care about the damage. He couldn't endure this. "Yes, anything."

"You know, that _could_ mean you don't like it," she said. "But the last time you asked me to stop something, you'd been screaming with pain for five minutes before you started begging, and even then you weren't serious about it since you kept refusing to do what I wanted. And now here you are, _not_ screaming, begging me to do anything to you instead of this. I think that means you _do_ like it and you hate that you do. Am I right?"

"You've made your point. You don't have to finish this."

"Oh, yes I do. I want you to know that a male body made you come."

He wanted to scream. _I don't care about the male body! You are the problem!_ But it wouldn't make matters any better. Almost better for her to think he was that terrorized by homosexuality than that she had such emotional power over him. As she returned to what she was doing, he tried to concentrate on something else. Think about the periodic table, think about the food stocks he had at his secret base, think about anything other than what she was making this body feel. No one had _ever_ done anything like this to him. He had suffered rape as a child, but no one had ever made him like it. _I don't like it! It's just the body responding-- it has nothing to do with me..._ And if he could actually make himself believe that, he'd be fine.

He didn't beg again. Since she wouldn't pay attention anyway, he could cling to his pride in some small ways like that. But despite all the effort he was putting into not writhing, into not feeling, he couldn't stop himself from whimpering, from shuddering with pleasure and nauseated disgust.

It went on for entirely too long, winding him tighter and tighter while the disgust and humiliation kept him from any actual release. He was drenched with sweat, his muscles so taut it was painful. The ability to feel pain at all flickered in and out, at times the pleasure being strong enough to make the pains he was feeling everywhere fade, at other times the sensations being purely painful in and of themselves. He wanted to weep, or scream, or hit her. He wanted release. He wanted her to stop, just stop. The heat had become oppressive, even though the basement was usually chilly, and he knew that had more to do with the stillness of the air and the heat he was generating. He couldn't get his breath, and she wouldn't stop. She seemed to know all the places that this body responded to-- and of course she would; it was her original body, after all. Occasional wrong notes, but for the most part she had mastery of the instrument she was playing. Eventually, exhausted and emotionally battered by what she'd already made him feel, he gave up, no longer trying to fight it. As if she could tell he'd given in, she stepped up her assault, stroking his body and playing with his breasts while her mouth ravished him. He couldn't make it stop. He no longer even had the strength to try. The sensations finally peaked, and the body arched, twisting.

She lifted her head and sat up. "There you go," she said.

Erik had never felt so humiliated in his life. He fell back motionless against the mattress and wished he was dead. The body snatcher stroked him. "See, if you play your cards right, you get to have some fun too."

He didn't respond, feeling no particular compulsion at the moment to move, or speak, or remain alive for that matter. After a moment she stepped back, disappointed that her new toy was broken. "You can give the walls the silent treatment, then. After all I've done for you. See if I care." She got dressed. "There's your food. Better eat it, keep your strength up."

He wasn't going to eat it. He never wanted to get up again. After half an hour of lying there trying very hard to stop thinking entirely, and failing, however, he realized that if he didn't eat, she'd realize quite how badly she'd gotten to him, and do it again. That was unacceptable. So he got up and choked the food down, slowly regaining some range of motion as muscles stiff from too long being tensed gradually unlocked. He then went over to his escape tunnel and dug ferociously until the light of dawn started to trickle into his cell, then showered and scrubbed his skin raw. Only then, hours after the incident, did he even bother to try to sleep.

* * *

It was late in the day, 4 or 5, when he woke up-- a side effect of digging all night after being injured and weak. The body snatcher hadn't left him food, nor had she attempted to awaken him. By the time the sky went dark and the stars started to come out-- about 8 PM, if he was in the latitude he thought he was-- he came to the conclusion she wasn't going to.

He needed food to compensate for his injuries. If she took to starving him, he wouldn't heal. Erik took a can of pork and beans from the stack of cans, and carried it over to the bed. Painstakingly, he lifted the bed, set the can underneath the bed's leg, and dropped the bed onto the can. It took four or five tries before the can tore open, splattering beans all over the bed's leg.

He closed the drain to the sink in the bathroom and dumped the contents of the can in that to use the sink as a makeshift bowl, since the can itself was too damaged and was spilling all over. The repeated lifting had started the bleeding up again, so as soon as he was done he washed and laid back down again.

It wasn't until late afternoon the next day that the body snatcher showed up. He'd begun to wonder if she ever would, and now a sense of relief swept over him along with the usual fear and tension at her appearance. While he'd opened two more cans since the first one for his meals, the procedure of lifting and dropping the bed repeatedly was stressing the very muscles that needed most to heal, and if she'd abandoned him down here he didn't know if he would ever heal properly.

"Feel any better?" she asked, floating his meal over to him-- several tinfoil containers of cold Chinese food, clearly leftovers.

"Somewhat. There's been sporadic bleeding over the past 24 hours, though, so I doubt I'm healed," he warned.

She shrugged. "I'll live. I don't have time to wait around for you to eat-- if you want to go outside, you'll have to eat after I let you back in."

Since the food was cold, there was no reason he couldn't wait for it. "Very well."

The body snatcher gestured. One of the steel cables split into pieces, four of the pieces flattening and wrapping themselves around his wrists and ankles. He watched the process warily. The cuffs weren't linked to anything, so he wasn't bound, but he couldn't figure out why she was doing this if she didn't plan to bind him.

"You can pay me in advance," she said. "I've got a lot to do and I can't be bothered babysitting you. Those cuffs'll let me track you while you're outside, so I don't have to watch."

"What is it that you need to do?" For the first time, he realized that she looked tired.

"I'm going out." She sat down on the bed. "Why should I stay cooped up in the middle of nowhere when I've got money, power and a gorgeous body? I bet _you_ didn't stay locked up in buttfuck nowhere."

In fact, if "buttfuck nowhere" translated to "a distant, isolated locale," he _had_ spent most of his life in voluntary hermitage in such places. He didn't say that. "I'd wondered why you seemed sexually obsessed with me," he said. "Surely you should have no difficulty finding willing partners. I never did, when I chose to look for them."

She laughed. "I like you because you're Magneto. It's a kick and a half, having someone the world's terrified of as my personal sex slave. But you're right-- you're getting hurt, and I've gotta give you time to heal, since I plan to keep you your entire life. So it's time to play with some new toys."

"Well, I would not want to keep you from your new toys," he said acidly. "Perhaps you should simply let me go outside, and finish your preparations. You'll hardly find a partner looking as haggard as that."

"I'm tempted. But we made a deal. You want to go outside, you pay up. Come over here and get your knees dirty."

Her interest seemed barely engaged, perfunctory-- clearly she was only demanding this because it was their bargain. That angered him unreasonably. If she was going to degrade him, she could damn well pay attention to it. He would _not_ be ignored. Angrily Erik threw himself into his task with all the intensity and focus he was capable of.

And he did get her attention. "_Very_ nice," she said when he was done, stroking his hair. "You know, I think you're beginning to like this."

It struck him then what he'd just done, how far from his normal psychology he'd drifted. He had just actually set out to please a captor who wished to degrade him because it upset him that she was bored with him. He should have been glad of it, should have done everything in his power to encourage her lack of interest. Instead, he had actively cooperated with her, sought to please her, because his pride was stung.

_****

That

is what will keep you here, old fool! You're still thinking like Magneto, without a fraction of the power to back it up! Did you learn nothing from Auschwitz? Never cooperate unless you must, never work harder than they demand, never think you can appeal to their compassion or a common humanity. If you want to live, if you want to be free, swallow that thrice-bedamned pride of yours!_

He bit back any response to her taunt and sat silently. After a moment she grew bored with waiting for a reaction, and stood, pulling up her pants. "Let's go."

* * *

After letting him out, she went back into the house. Promptly Erik tested the limits of her remote monitoring, heading straight for the woods. As he neared the edge, he got a sharp shock from the metal cuffs and was roughly dragged about six feet backward by them, falling on his backside. A few more tests in different areas of the yard mapped out the range she would allow him, at the expense of several painful falls. Within that range he was able to do a good bit of exploring. He found where she'd buried his predecessors, in a garden plot on the other side of the house-- at least he assumed so, since it was the only area where the soil was loose enough to reflect recently dug graves underneath. The plot was thoroughly choked with weeds, but he did find two fresh tomatoes and some fresh zucchini to snack on-- he hadn't eaten yet, and fresh vegetables had become a wondrous luxury.

There were several pathways leading into the woods. He couldn't follow them, but he got as close as he could and looked down them, trying to see if he could see a road of any sort in the distance, preferably a different one than the deserted back road he'd found when he'd briefly escaped. No luck-- the paths were twisty and quickly disappeared into the trees.

There were a few trees within the perimeter of his allowed movements. Erik chose one with relatively low branches, including one branch he could reach without strain even in this short body, and practiced chin-ups. The exercise he'd been doing for a week had improved upper arm strength a little-- he was actually able to pull his body all the way up to the branch twice before his arms started shaking too badly for him to manage it again. He wanted to run, but with the healing injuries inside he didn't dare-- he wasn't entirely sure whether running placed stress on vaginal muscles or not, but it certainly made sense that it might. Better to concentrate on his upper body for now-- it needed more work anyway. He waited a few minutes until his arms had stopped shaking, then repeated the exercise, this time not pulling himself quite as high so as not to exhaust himself as quickly.

She allowed him outside for hours, much to his surprise-- it was getting dark when she finally came out to pick him up. He stared at her in disbelief and shock. She was wearing skin-tight leather pants that made the most revealing of his costumes look positively modest, studded collar and gloves, and a Y-shaped set of studded straps across the chest that turned into an X in back. And an earring. The absurd costume was, in its own way, probably no more ridiculous than the short-sleeved outfit with the M on it that he'd worn to give his healing arms free range of motion, and not incidentally show off in front of Lee. But the earring seriously bothered him. He'd worn one himself, once, but the cultural context had been very, very different. Here in America, an earring worn by a man in a getup like what she was wearing tended to mean one thing. Up close, he realized she was also wearing lipstick and a masking foundation, and that only confirmed his fears.

"You-- aren't going out to pick up women, are you," he said. It wasn't a question, quite.

She laughed. "Just because I enjoy fucking men in my own body doesn't mean I like to fuck other women, no. Women don't deserve it. It's men who need to be shown who's on top." She leered at him. "Don't like what I've done with the body?"

"It's rather far removed from my style."

"Yup. _No_ one in their right mind is going to look at me and think, 'hey! that's Magneto!' I recognized you in a business suit, but I really doubt I'd've recognized you in a gay bar."

She had a point. "Since you plan to remain in my body indefinitely, I hope you have the sense to use condoms. When I take the body back from you I have no desire to have AIDS."

"Don't be a worrywart. It's hard to get AIDS from topping."

"Nevertheless--"

"I'll do what I want, Magneto. I'm not answerable to you. And since you're never getting your body back, I don't see why you're worried." She pushed him into the basement, lifting him with her powers by the cuffs still on ankles and wrists, and dumped him on the bed. The cuffs melted off and fell to the floor as shapeless lumps of metal, and she shut the door and bolted it, locking him away for the night.

He waited, eating his Chinese food, until he heard the front door shut, heard the car start and drive off. She was gone, and he didn't know how much time he had. He started throwing himself against the door to the basement, trying to break it down. It was impossible to get the leverage he needed-- what he really needed was a running start or room to kick, but the stairs started immediately upon entering the basement, so there was nowhere to stand but a narrow step that gave him no room to lean back. He couldn't kick or swing with any real force from there, and having to run up steps cut his momentum considerably. After about twenty times running up the steps to slam against the door, he was seriously out of breath and the door had budged only slightly.

All right. He went down and got one of the steel cables, doubled it over in his hands into a kind of blackjack, and attacked the door with that. With all the strength he had, he struck and kicked at the area between the bottom and the midpoint of the door.

He'd been working on it for what seemed like forever when the wood finally splintered. The hinge gave, and he was able to shove the wood aside and squeeze out, just barely.

The door to the house was locked. She'd done something magnetically to the doorknob, so he couldn't unlock it. The window proved to be similarly sealed. He smashed the window and tried to push the screen mesh behind it out of the frame. It didn't budge, even when he kicked it, even when he picked up one of the pieces of expensively cheap pottery knickknacks that cluttered every available surface of the living room furniture and slammed it into the mesh with all his strength. He went into the kitchen, grabbed a knife, and attacked the screen mesh-- and didn't manage to so much as put a tiny rip in it. Obviously she'd done something to the screens, strengthening them and welding them to their frames. The strands of the mesh seemed to be entirely metal, not metal-coated nylon like most screens, and were thicker than most screen mesh strands would be. Perhaps she'd used his powers to replace all the screens with these more secure pure metal ones. That didn't bode well for his chances at finding a window to escape through.

He went back to the kitchen again, took a hammer out of one of the kitchen drawers after a quick search, and smashed the glass panes of the kitchen door. Since he had to crawl out that way, he was thorough about it, leaving no glass fragments left in the frame. There was a screen door after that, fastened with a simple hook latch.

A simple steel hook latch.

After several fruitless minutes of standing on a chair, reaching through the shattered door pane and shoving at the screen door in the hopes that the metal latch would simply break off from the door, he gave up and went on a search for windows that had no screen behind them. The screen in the screen door was done the same way as the one in the living room, steel and unbreakable. He had to assume all the screens in the house would be like that. If he didn't find any without screens, he could probably, eventually, work a kitchen knife into the mesh and bend it enough to let him out. But that would take time, and he was short on that.

He found the right kind of window in the second floor bathroom. It was a high, tiny window-- he would barely be able to fit through, even in this body. By now enough time had passed that he was getting very nervous. The window, like all the others, wouldn't open-- he had to smash it, which he did quickly and cleanly by flinging the bathroom scale through it. The remainder of the glass he knocked out with a shampoo bottle, and then stood on the toilet and clambered up to the window, squeezing himself through the narrow opening. What was left of the glass scraped long scores against his arms, ripping the fabric of the blouse. He twisted, getting cuts across his abdomen, and backed out carefully, clinging to the bricks in the wall to support himself as he pulled himself out backwards, standing precariously on the window sill. Carefully, cautiously, he turned around--

\--and saw headlights pulling into the driveway.

He swore and bent at the knees, almost falling over. He couldn't rush. If he rushed, he was lost. But if he didn't move fast enough, he was equally lost. Erik grabbed the windowsill and tried to lower himself off it-- he could drop the distance more safely and quietly if he could lower himself the length of his body before dropping.

But he overestimated his arm strength again. When his weight came down on his arms, they refused to hold and buckled, dropping him noisily into the bushes below instead of the more controlled descent he'd planned. He hit the bushes, scraping himself against sharp little branches and getting the wind knocked out of him.

He couldn't afford to be winded. The body snatcher would find him at any minute. He dragged himself to his feet, staggering out of the bushes, and limped toward the woods, trying to force his legs to go faster.

Several lights around the outside of the house lit up, flooding the yard. Erik broke into a run, desperate to make the woods before she saw him, before she caught up with him and--

\--Something tangled in his legs. One of the steel cables. Frantically he tried to extricate himself from it, tried to keep going, though by then he knew it was too late. The cable bound his ankles together and dragged him across the ground, over to the side of the house and the kitchen door.

The body snatcher stood there, her face grim. "Well. You've made quite a mess."

He glared up at her defiantly. "Rather short for a night on the town," he said, forcing a calm he didn't feel.

"When I sensed you setting off the alarms, I decided to bring my date home." She smiled cruelly. "What happens next is all your fault, Magneto."

"Alarms? I saw no alarms..." Concentrate on that. Concentrate on learning, so he could change things, do things differently next time. He would live through this. That was all he needed to concentrate on.

"Don't be a dumbass. I've been playing with electric wiring. Ran a circuit through the door to your cell when you were unconscious in my bedroom, just in case you got any bright ideas like this one. When you smashed the door down, you broke the circuit."

And he'd had no idea. No more could he have-- he couldn't see current anymore. It had never occurred to him that she might have devised such a baffle-- he had underestimated _her_, assumed her to be stupid. A wave of utter despair swept over him. If he couldn't outthink her, how _could_ he escape? He had no other advantages...

The cable released his ankle, and twisted up around his body, binding his arms behind his back and shoving him forward. It pushed him up the stairs and into her bedroom.

"I want you to watch this. I don't know if you even give a fuck, but you whine so much about using your powers to kill only in a cause and rape is wrong and all that shit, I think you will. Keep in mind this is your fault." She opened a door, and shoved him into the open, empty closet within. The cable dragged his arms up and bound them to the clothesrack. From a drawer she took a ball gag, cuffs and metal hooks. Her power drove the hooks into the floor by his feet, and fastened the cuffs around his ankles, locking them to the hooks and binding his legs apart.

When she tried to push the gag into his mouth, he kept his mouth closed tightly, resisting her. Her hand went between his legs, bunching the fabric of the skirt. "Open your mouth, or I'll shock you until you scream and then shove it in."

Or until he lost consciousness from the torture and she was able to force his mouth open. Even if he kept from screaming, there was no way to avoid the second fate. It wasn't worth it. He slumped slightly in his bonds, defeated, and allowed her to gag him and bind the gag in place with a metal strap around his head.

And then she stepped out of the closet.

He was thrown off balance. Hadn't she been just about to torture him? Not that he wasn't grateful for the reprieve, but he didn't understand. If she was going to chain him up in a closet and then walk off, what was the point to the elaborate bondage setup?

She came back a few minutes later with a young man in tow. The fellow was slim, dark-haired with one side of his hair cropped close and the other overlong, and pretty in an effeminate sort of way. He also was terrified, his eyes wide and bright with tears, his arms bound behind his back with more cable, and Erik realized suddenly what the body snatcher's purpose was. She meant to rape the boy in front of him.

"Please," the young man was begging-- he couldn't be older than 22, not much older than Sam would be now, Erik thought with a mixture of pity and rage. The bitch would pay for this. He had already sworn to kill her for the humiliations she'd subjected him to; this crime only sealed her doom. "Please, please don't hurt me. I'll do anything. I swear. I haven't done anything to you, you don't have to hurt me, please, what have I done to you?"

"Sorry, dear boy, this isn't about you," the body snatcher said coldly. "I need to teach someone a lesson, and he doesn't do real well at learning from personal experience."

The boy looked over at Erik. His eyes seemed to plead, _help me, save me, get me out of this_, though to his eyes Erik had to be as much a victim here as he was. Perhaps, despite the pronoun difficulties, he had figured out that Erik was the person this "lesson" was aimed at. Erik met his eyes, trying to-- what, reassure him? He was powerless here. He could offer no reassurance, only sympathy and the promise of vengeance. The body snatcher forced the young man down on the bed, stripping him, binding him. Erik couldn't look away. He struggled futilely with his bonds as the body snatcher raped the boy, needing to stop this, to do anything, even if it meant killing his own body. But there was nothing he could do. He tried, uselessly, to convince himself that he didn't care-- humans were constantly being killed, tortured and raped, and he'd long ago decided he wasn't going to worry about their species' problems, as long as they left his own alone. But the boy was an innocent, and for all that Erik had killed men this young when they wore uniforms and came at him with guns or nuclear missiles, he had never heard their screaming pleas for mercy, had never seen their young faces as they died. And he'd certainly never raped any of them. He was sick at heart, and so enraged that it was hard to see for the red haze over his vision.

For a moment, after she'd finished and the only sound was the young man's sobs, Erik thought that that would be the end of it, and was relieved. Rape could be survived. He'd survived selling his body for protection and a better work assignment at a much younger age than this boy; what mattered was that the boy was alive.

And then the body snatcher took him again, using the electric shocks. But she didn't hold back as she did when she tortured Erik himself that way. Erik heard the animal screams of pain, saw the young man's body convulsing as arcs of blue-white power crackled around the two, and knew long before the boy's convulsions stopped that he was dead.

The body snatcher dressed, and came over to the closet. As she removed Erik's gag he lunged forward as far as his bonds would let him, trying to bite her throat out. She belted him in the face, knocking him backwards.

"Your fault, Magneto," she said before he could say anything.

"_My_ fault? I am not the person who just _raped_ someone to death! I am not the one who kills for sick pleasure! Monster I may be, but I have never-- have never-- I will _kill_ you for this..."

She hit him again, dispassionately. "Shut up. I might have just fucked him and let him live. I might even have taken him to a hotel room and let him have a good time too. But _you_ made me have to return, and I wasn't going to give up my prize. He would have willingly gone with me, but since I had to fly the car back in order to deal with your escape attempts, I had to kidnap him, and once I took him here I couldn't let him live. _Your_ escape attempt necessitated this."

"No!" He shook his head furiously. "_You_ chose to do this. You chose to hold me captive, you chose to torture me, you chose to murder an innocent for your pleasure. Nothing you can say--" Another blow struck his face. He rocked back with it, but would not be silenced. ."..nothing you can say changes that--" And another blow. This one caught him in the temple, dizzying him. "Do you think you will change my mind by hitting me?" he demanded, and got another punch for that.

"Maybe I won't change your mind. Maybe I need to kill another half dozen faggots before you realize I'm not taking this shit from you anymore. You do what _I_ say, Magneto, and you talk when _I_ give you permission, because maybe I can't kill _you_, but I can kill them. And if that doesn't work, I'll go find me some muties and fuck _them_ to death. You want me to go kidnapping little mutant kids and fucking them in the ass till they die? Is that what you want?"

"No, of course not. But if you do it, it's on your conscience, not mine. It is not 'my fault,' you fool."

"When are you going to learn? I don't _have_ a conscience." She grabbed his chin. "I'm going to fuck you any time I want, and you're not going to give me any backtalk anymore, and you're _definitely_ not going to try to escape. Because you do any of those things, and I'll kill someone. And then it _will_ be your fault. You could have prevented it by shutting up and doing what you were told, and you didn't." She stepped back from him and gestured. The bonds that held him released, pushing him backward. He staggered, stumbling backward into the closet, falling against the far wall. "Pick up his body and bring it downstairs."

"And if I don't?"

"I'll go out and find someone else to kill. If you don't care about me attacking men, I could go after women. Or little boys. Or babies. Want to watch me fuck a baby to death?"

No. He didn't want that at all. With great effort, he lifted the boy's corpse, staggering under the load. He simply wasn't strong enough. "Let me have a travois. Something I can carry him with that grants him a little dignity."

"He's dead. He doesn't give a shit about dignity. Carry him, Magneto, or he won't be the last one to die like this."

He did his best to carry the body instead of dragging it. It required a stop every three steps, and when he tried to negotiate the stairs he almost fell twice. The second time he dropped the body, and it fell to the bottom of the stairs. Sick fury at himself and his own clumsiness warred with hatred toward her for her casual indifference toward her victim. He wanted to wipe the sneer off her face as badly as he'd wanted to kill when the Nazi engineers had talked about the difficulties the buildup of ash and fats was causing in the crematoria, as if these were minor obstacles to efficiency and not the remains of murdered human beings they were talking about. And, as he'd been then, he was completely powerless to do anything about it. Painstakingly, with tremendous effort, he carried the body out to the side of the garden plot, at the body snatcher's direction.

She gestured toward the house with her head. A moment later a spade came floating out of the garage, to land at his feet. "Dig."

The spade was obviously made of iron. If he swung it at her head, all that would happen would be that she'd deflect it. He remembered his best friend and mentor, an apparently young doctor named Peter Jansen, being shot for smuggling food-- how close he had come to being shot himself, how Peter had managed to grab the contraband away from Erik and conceal it on himself without the guard noticing as soon as it looked as if they might be caught, the blood staining the frozen ground as his friend fell over dead. Most of the bodies were cremated, even back then, but it had amused the officer who'd shot Peter to make Erik bury him, as a punishment. The SS man had stood over him with a gun, forcing him to dig Peter's grave out behind the camp, the ground frozen and hard as he'd chopped at it with all the strength in his small starved body, digging with a spade just like this one. He'd been too terrified to cry, too certain that as soon as the grave was dug he too would be shot and dumped in beside Peter's body, and when he'd been allowed to go back to his work squad afterwards, alive, he had been too tired for relief, too tired for tears. The memory rose up with terrible vividness, choking him with bile, grief and fury. Oh God he wanted her dead. Didn't care any more if his body died, didn't care if _he_ died for that matter, so long as she did. If he brained her and she jumped, would he have a moment of life and consciousness left to him once in his own body that he could electrocute her?

The spade rose up and struck him in the leg, falling back to the ground again. "I said dig. Did you hear me?"

Erik turned slowly and stared at her with a look that had inspired hardened military men to panic and demand his death immediately. She took a single, almost involuntary step backward, and then scowled at him. "Do you have a hearing problem?"

"No." Erik lifted the spade and began to dig. The murdered youngster deserved a grave, at the very least. Someday Erik would track down his family and tell them where their son was buried, but for now all he could do was bury the boy, granting him more dignity than the body snatcher had allowed him. He was neither as weak as he'd been in Auschwitz, nor was the ground as hard; it didn't take the eternity he remembered before a ragged hole, six feet long and four feet deep, took shape. He was too short to dig it much deeper than that and still be able to get out. Almost involuntarily, he whispered the first line of the mourner's Kaddish, the prayer for the dead, as he had done for Peter, as he and his fellows had done for the bodies they burned. It had been so terribly long since he'd thought it meant anything, and yet it felt disrespectful to say nothing, to be silent in the face of wrongful death. When he was done he leaned out of the grave and gently lifted the boy's tortured body, lowering it to the floor of the grave.

He started to remove his skirt, intending to use it for a shroud, or as much of one as possible anyway. "What are you doing?" the body snatcher asked sharply.

"He needs a shroud."

"He doesn't need any such thing, and that's my skirt. You don't get to dispose of it."

"You have murdered this young man for no better reason than your personal pleasures, and you begrudge him even so much as a shroud to be buried in?" His voice rose shrilly, ragged with fury and exhaustion.

"Yep. You're done here. Come on out."

With icy focus, he climbed out of the grave, carrying the spade, knowing what he had to do. He remained on his knees on the grassy earth for a moment, as the body snatcher turned her attention away from him to start tossing dirt into the grave. Her mistake. He stood, reversed the spade so that the wooden handle was pointing toward her, and without warning shoved the wood at the back of her head, aiming for the intersection of head and neck.

Something tipped her off-- the motion of the metal parts of the spade, pointed away from her body? Some small sound, some sight of him in her peripheral vision? She turned, and the spade handle glanced off the side of her head instead of striking the vulnerable back of the neck. Then the spade rose, tearing out of his hands, and struck him in the legs, edge-on to draw blood. He fell to his knees, but refused to cry out.

"How stupid can you possibly be?" she asked. "Don't you know you _can't_ kill me? At this range I'd just jump back into my own body, and you'd be the one to die. Are you actually that suicidal?"

"Even with a severed spine, I'd have enough power left to me to kill you!" he snarled. "I _will_ stop you, whether it costs me my life or no. After what you've done, you murdering, selfish witch, I will pay any price to destroy you!"

"Stupid." She shook her head, and winced. "Ow. Damn, that thing hurt. You're going to pay for that."

She strode over to him and started to pull him to his feet. He slammed his head into her stomach. The body snatcher wasn't prepared for that. She gasped, doubling over, and he did it again, and then stood up rapidly and shoved his knee into her groin, and then started punching her in the face. He was smaller than she was and without a great deal of upper arm strength, but unlike a typical woman he knew how to hit, and he was half-insane with fury. She went down. He kept hitting and kicking her until the spade slammed into his back, knocking the breath from him and driving him to the ground.

In the moment that he lay stunned, she regained her equilibrium, and knelt on his back, pinning him. "All right," she said, breathing hard. She got to her feet, keeping one foot on his back. "You want to play that way? We'll play that way." He struggled, trying to get to his feet, but he was flat on the ground and had no good leverage against the foot pressing down against his spine. "You want to die so badly, I can oblige."

"You're bluffing," he gasped, the breath crushed from him. "You don't dare kill this body."

"Watch me."

"If you do it'll be the first intelligent thing you've done since capturing me. Because if you let me live I _will_ kill you, I swear it."

"You really do want to die." She laughed, and kicked him in the side, hard. He rolled with it, coming to his feet, but stepped backward directly into a floating steel cable, that bound his hands behind his back before he could fight it. Erik flung himself at her uselessly, snarling, trying to slam his knee into her stomach or bite her throat out. The effort was futile, of course; her shields were up, and after a second she dragged him back by the bindings on his wrist, throwing him sideways and flinging him into the open grave, on top of the dead boy.

He was winded from his fall, but too hyped on rage and terror to really notice. Erik turned over in time to see a metal wheelbarrow full of dirt hovering over his head. Panicked now, he scrambled to escape the grave, difficult when he hadn't the use of his hands. The dirt started pouring down on him, choking him. He stumbled backward against the dead boy, the young man's hands reaching for him like his family's had, trying to pull him back down with them, _stay with us, you belong with us, lie down and be dead with us_, only this time his hands were bound and he couldn't reach the edge of the grave in time. More dirt poured on him, and her power tugged downward on the cable around his wrists, dragging him down, flattening against the bottom of the grave and pushing down as if she didn't know where the bottom was and just kept pushing. His hands were being driven into the earth, and she kept pouring on more dirt.

He screamed, inarticulate and half-hysterical sounds of rage and panicked fear, and choked when he did, without the breath to draw for screaming. Desperately, mindlessly he tried to pull free. The grave was only four feet deep. He could force his way out if she would only release his hands, but his hands were being crushed against the hard earth by the inexorable push of the power she'd stolen from him, and he couldn't breathe, and his shoulders were dislocating as he tried to stay doubled over so that he'd have a pocket of air protected from the dirt by his head. If he could have reached his hands to try to gnaw them off and free himself, he would have.

It took an eternity of air running out and dirt clouding into his lungs and his arms being nearly torn loose from his body by the force of his own desperate struggles before, finally, those struggles weakened. There was nothing in the world but the pounding of blood in his ears and the leaden weight of his body, and he no longer had the strength to keep fighting, though he fought anyway. He had escaped so many years ago, and now things came full circle and the ground opened up and swallowed him again, and this time he wasn't getting away. So much he'd wanted to do, left undone, and this monster who would destroy his reputation and murder the innocent with his body when he was dead was let to run free, and there was nothing he could do.

Erik focused what little energy he had left into a single thought, aimed at a telepath who might or might not receive it. _Xavier... stop her... I cannot..._

The world dimmed and faded around him.

* * *

And returned, in a roaring of light and pain, as someone pressed against his abused chest, making him cough and gasp. For a moment, totally disoriented, he thought he was looking up at his father. Then the figure spoke, and he remembered.

"Welcome back," the body snatcher said sardonically. "Did you really think I'd kill you?"

He didn't answer. He couldn't. His lungs hurt far, far too much to try to speak. It was enough of an effort simply to breathe.

"That answers me one question, though. You don't want to die. No one fights that hard and long against suffocating if they actually want to die. So let's not have any of the stupid suicidal shit, all right?"

He felt broken. The rage and the terror and the desperation had drained him as much as the torture had, and now he was numb. He'd been like this when he'd escaped from his family's grave, and the guards had found him and dragged him off to Auschwitz-- as if all feeling had been burnt out of him, and something inside him was dead. It had reawakened then, just in time to be brutalized all over again by what he then suffered in the camps. He didn't know if it would reawaken now, or if he wanted it to.

The body snatcher dragged him back to his cell, stripped him and forced him into the shower. "You're filthy." His hands were free now-- she'd released the cable when she'd taken his blouse off-- but he couldn't make his arms move. They hung uselessly at his sides, as he sat crumpled in a ball in a corner of the shower. She turned the water on, and hit him when he wouldn't stand up and step into it. Passively he let her, unable to muster up the energy to fight back any more.

"You asked for it," she snapped. The cable grabbed his wrists again, and this time dragged them over his head, suspending him upright. He screamed, having no strength left to resist the pain or hide it. She released him again, and he fell, sliding on the bathtub tile. She caught him with her hands. "You going to wash yourself up, or do I have to string you up and do it myself?"

"My arms..." His voice was a hoarse, thready whisper. "I can't move them... think you dislocated... shoulders..."

"Oh well. Guess I'll have to do it then."

She strung him up again and scrubbed him brutally under painfully hot water. He kept blacking out from exhaustion and pain, and when he was conscious he couldn't quite stop himself from moaning weakly with the pain, or more precisely no longer cared enough to bother stopping himself. When she was done, she dragged him, soaking wet, over to the bed. "It _does_ look like these are dislocated. Too bad. Guess I'll have to fix them." The body snatcher grinned ferally at him. He didn't care. She was going to torture him, he knew that, and he knew that in his current condition he wouldn't be able to resist her. He was going to scream, and possibly worse. It didn't matter. His pride was shattered, and he no longer cared much about anything anymore.

She shoved his arms back into his shoulder joints, possibly tearing the ligaments and certainly causing more pain than he was able to handle right now. He came very close to blacking out, and swam back to full consciousness to find her raping him. Well, that he expected. Sooner or later that had to happen. When she was done, she shoved him off the bed, making him fall to the stone floor hard.

She grabbed his hair and dragged his head up to face her. "Listen to me," she said quietly. "Everything that's happened tonight has been your fault. You tried to resist me, you tried to escape, so you had to pay for that. That's why I killed that kid, that's why I made you bury him, and when you attacked me that's why I buried you along with him. I _could_ kill you. I could put a breathing mask on you and bury you alive for days if I wanted to. I don't actually need that body except as insurance. But I'd rather not-- so any time you defy me, I'm going to kill someone else. I'll fuck them to death, or bury them alive, and you'll know it's your fault. Do you want that?"

He didn't answer. She shook his head, tugging his hair painfully. "Do you want that, Magneto?"

"...no."

"Okay. So here are the new rules. You do what _I_ tell you to do. You don't bargain with me, you don't snipe at me, you don't act like you're so all morally superior. You are, from now on, my slave, and you're going to act like it. And if you don't, I'll hurt you, and I'll kill someone else." She shrugged. "I really don't know what upset you so badly-- you've killed before. But I can't deny that it _did_ upset you, badly enough to try some really stupid stunts I thought you were too smart for. So, that's the way it's going to be." She released his hair. "Any questions?"

"No," he whispered dully.

"You do believe me, don't you? You know I'll kill someone else if you push me to it."

"Yes."

"Okay. So as long as we're all on the same page. Get some sleep-- you've had a rough day."

She left. He didn't sleep. Auschwitz had taught him to weep silently, even when he was weak and despairing and no longer really cared if he was overheard. After a long time of staring into the darkness with tear-blurred vision, eventually his weakness overwhelmed him, and fitfully he did sleep.

* * *

The morning sunlight awakened him more slowly than usual. Everything hurt, and he felt sluggish, almost drugged, torn between the nightmares sleep had brought and the waking nightmare his life had become. Even after wakefulness won, he didn't feel alert. For a long time he lay in bed, staring at the ceiling, hurting too badly to be able to escape back into sleep again. His lungs were still raw from suffocating yesterday, and his arms lay like leaden weights at his side, and there were all the usual host of aches and pains as well.

A hot bath was the only anodyne he had for muscle aches. The hot water usually made whatever pains she'd inflicted on his genitals hurt worse, but for once, today, that wasn't where the worst of the pain was coming from. He lurched out of bed, dragging himself to the bathroom, and ran a bath. To let the hot water reach his strained shoulder muscles, he had to sink into the bathtub as low as he could go without getting water on his face. The water was warm and soothing, dangerously so in his exhaustion. He might fall asleep, slide the rest of the way down into the tub, and drown.

Actually, the thought was tempting.

Dispassionately, he examined the option. He knew the fact that it could tempt him at all came from temporary phenomena-- or at least he hoped they were temporary. He was still drained, apathetic. A night's sleep hadn't miraculously restored his perspective. He'd kept dreaming of the dead boy, all night. In one particularly horrible variant, the victim had somehow turned out to be Wanda, and the killer was himself in his days of madness, and the himself that was dreaming had to stand outside his body and watch horrified as the himself in the dream raped and murdered his daughter. Erik had awakened from that weeping, pleading in a confused state of half-sleep for Xavier to kill him, though whether the self he'd wanted dead had been the observer or the perpetrator, he wasn't sure. He rarely had nightmares about his own crimes-- when he did, it usually indicated a level of disturbance and emotional pain far greater that what he normally lived with. Intellectually he knew that even when he had been at his absolute worst he had never done something akin to what the body snatcher had done last night, never even contemplated it. But it was impossible to avoid seeing himself in her, blaming himself in some part for her crimes, when she wore his body and killed with his powers. And when he reflexively tried to twist away from the guilt and the self-hatred, there was nothing else there, nothing but utter emptiness.

If he was in better emotional shape, even the fact that he could be tempted by the thought of suicide would horrify him. At the moment, though, he felt so empty that the knowledge that he should be horrified wasn't compelling. He thought of slipping under the warm, soothing water and letting it grant him peace forever, and wondered if he had any good reason not to. The usual reasons-- the sense of destiny, the responsibility to those who had died so he could live-- weren't working.

He remembered the nightmares, and he thought of a reason. The body snatcher had promised not to kill again if he served her. If he didn't-- if he fled under the water-- she would. Xavier didn't seem to be in any big hurry to investigate, and if she never did anything on the scale of raising the _Leningrad_ or rebuilding Asteroid M, the magnetic flux detectors that people like SHIELD and the Russians used to track him would never pick her out of the Earth's background EM noise. Most of the superheroes he knew of that were capable of taking him down were not the sort who chased serial killers-- there were, thankfully, awfully few Omega class serial killers in the world. If he didn't live and escape, to warn someone or take his body back and end the threat, she would kill again, and again. And if he lived, and served her as she demanded, she wouldn't kill. She'd said so, and so far she had generally kept her bargains with him.

A lifetime ago he had sold his soul to survive. Everyone in the camps was a slave-- everyone had worked for the Nazis, because the alternative was death. But there were different kinds of work, and different degrees of the evil one collaborated in. He had been Sonderkommando-- the special squadron, assigned to the machinery of death. He had carted bodies from the gas chambers to the furnaces, had sorted through the belongings of the dead, had helped to kill his own people. Even among the others of the Sonderkommando, he had stayed alive at the expense of his compatriots-- he'd been good with machines, even then, and he'd been classified as essential personnel, not to be liquidated, because he could fix the furnaces when they broke down. He could keep the engines of death going, to buy more time for his miserable life.

He didn't have the right to kill himself now. His continued existence, his servitude to the body snatcher, could save lives as his life and servitude to the Nazis had helped end them. It didn't matter that she had finally pushed him up against a line he found he'd rather die than cross. He had sold the right to kill himself for such a selfish reason when he'd let them make him Sonderkommando instead of choosing to die.

The door opened. He couldn't see her from where he was in the tub, but he could hear the sound of the door swinging open, her footsteps on the stairs. Erik climbed out of the tub, clumsily, as he was still very tired. There was no time to get dressed, not that it mattered. She'd want him naked anyway. He toweled himself off quickly, so he was still wet but not dripping, and stepped out of the bathroom just as she came within two feet of it.

She smiled insolently, looking him up and down. "All nice and clean?"

Anyone who sought power over another would speak the language of gestures. Erik didn't trust his voice. After last night he hated her more profoundly than he ever had, but until he could escape-- if he ever could-- she owned him, and lives rode on the degree to which he submitted to that. Wordlessly he went down on his knees before her, bowing his head in a gesture of submission he had never before willingly performed.

He couldn't see her face with his head bowed, but he imagined a look of shock on her face in the moment of stillness that followed. The stillness passed, and he felt her hand ruffle through his hair. "So last night really did teach you a lesson," she said, her tone half amused, half amazed. "I gotta admit I didn't expect it to work quite so well." She leaned down and tilted his head up with a hand under his chin. "Is that all it took? Threatening to kill people? I thought you were supposed to be a big badass terrorist."

They'd had this discussion before, and last night she'd forbidden him to "act morally superior," so there was nothing he could say to that. She ran a finger lightly around his eyes, stroked his cheek and lips. "Tell you what, I give you permission to get me off however you want to. You want to make it easier on yourself by sucking me off instead of getting fucked, you can."

He took the invitation as an order, and obeyed it. She seemed excited by his submission; lately her interest had only seemed engaged when she was hurting him, or the time she had made him take control and pretend to like it. If his submissiveness would serve as a substitute for his pain or humiliation to arouse her and finish her quickly, he wished he'd thought of it before-- and realized that of course he wouldn't have implemented it, before. Before, he'd have preferred the pain. Probably, if it were still an option, he still would.

The task was done quickly. She stepped back and pulled her pants up. "Get dressed. I've got a job for you."

After shaking out as much of the dirt from yesterday from his clothes as he could and dressing, he followed her upstairs to the kitchen. "Let's see how serious you were about agreeing to be my slave," she said, grinning. "Do the dishes."

The majority of the dishes were three or four days old, caked with hardened filth. He had them done in fifteen minutes, and put them away at her direction. She made him wipe down the counters and table, and sweep the floor, which was in dire need of it-- it looked like she hadn't swept it in weeks. Then, under her supervision, he vacuumed the living room, dusted around all the clutter of expensive bric-a-brac, and did the same for the den. Upstairs she made him clean the bathroom, picking up all the glass from the window he'd smashed-- this wasn't difficult, since most of the glass had fallen outside, not in. Finally, she handed him the past ten days' worth of clothing for his own body that she'd bought and worn, and made him wash all of it. He washed the clothes he was wearing with them, too, at her direction. Funny; she had no problem torturing him until he wished he was dead, but she wanted him to keep clean. Her priorities were bizarre, to say the least.

"From now on, you're my housemaid too. You figured out last night that you can't get any of the windows or doors open, and I think you know better than to try to get away now, anyway. Am I right?"

He lowered his head, this time more to keep her from seeing the dawning hope in his eyes than out of genuine submission. "Yes."

"Peachy. So I'm gonna let you upstairs in the morning and give you orders on what to clean." Her smirk grew, sprawling lazily across her face. "I hope you're a good housekeeper, Magneto, 'cause if you do a crap job keeping stuff clean, you're gonna suffer for it."

It was clearly another of her humiliation plots. It was also completely and utterly misguided. Erik had been an orderly in a psychiatric hospital, had kept house for himself for years after he lost Magda and before he'd learned to build robots to do it. He was quite accustomed to, and unbothered by, housework. Perhaps Magneto's stiff-necked pride would have been hurt at the thought of being a menial servant, but while Erik hadn't managed to overcome all of that pride, and didn't want to, he could quite honestly feel pleased rather than humiliated by his new role. An opportunity to wander around her house, even under supervision, was an opportunity to get information about her, and an opportunity to do something other than exercise and pace, to see something other than the walls of his cell. The despair he'd been feeling since last night began to lighten slightly. It was only a very tiny bit of added freedom, but still it was more than he'd had yesterday, and it gave him some hope.

* * *

That day formed the pattern for the routine of the next two weeks. She would drag him upstairs in the mornings, usually after feeding him, and make him clean and do chores for her. Sometimes she demanded that he do this naked, or wearing some sort of fetishistic lingerie; most of the time, though, she let him wear his one set of clothes, which by now were worn and stained, although he had taken to washing them in the sink every night and had the opportunity to toss them into the wash with her clothes on several occasions. She would then mete out punishments for anything she thought he'd done wrong. Some days she'd let him outside to exercise; on other days she would deny him the privilege, as a punishment or because it was raining. He was allowed some degree of freedom within the house-- he could walk about without her direct supervision while he was doing his chores-- although she would give him assignments to be completed by a certain time, and if he didn't make the time limit there would be punishment. As nearly as he could tell, she spent her evenings going out-- she would lock him in the basement then, and she'd reinforced the door with steel, so he couldn't hope to break through it again. He used her absences to dig, for far longer than he'd dared do while she was in the house all the time.

The greatest advantage of this new routine was that it gave him access to newspapers. She seemed to have a habit of collecting newspapers from various cities-- one day it would be the _Washington Post_ on the kitchen table, the next day it would be New York's _Daily Bugle_, and then the _Philadelphia Inquirer_ would turn up. Having nothing to read, no way to learn anything about what was going on the world, had been driving him nuts in a subtler, more insidious way than being cooped up in the basement had. He didn't usually have much time-- she would order him upstairs, set him to work in the kitchen, and disappear for several minutes. If the dishes and whatever other kitchen tasks were set for him weren't done by the time she got back, there would be punishment later, and she was eager enough to punish him that she generally cut it awfully close. But he often had long enough to scan at least the front page while he washed the dishes, propping it up over the sink so he could read it. He also often had an opportunity to steal food from the refrigerator-- he was never incautious enough to take something she could easily count, never a whole apple or a roll or something else easily quantized. But a mouthful of applesauce, a bite of cheese sliced from a cheddar brick, a quick drink of milk or fruit juice-- that he could manage without drawing her attention.

After she came back, he'd be set to work in other rooms, where the opportunities for stealing food or information were considerably less, but if she disappeared again he sometimes had a moment to run back to the kitchen and read a bit more of the newspaper before she returned. And, on one occasion, he found several pieces of her opened mail stuck under the cushions of the couch. This was a truly valuable find. From the names on the bills, he deduced that her name was either Lisa or Lee Davies-- probably Lisa, and Lee was the male pseudonym she used in stolen bodies. From the address, he could see that they were in Clearfield, Pennsylvania, though he hadn't a clue where in Pennsylvania Clearfield might be. From the bills themselves, he was able to determine that before she'd kidnapped him and stolen his credit cards, she had probably been used to a comfortable middle-class standard of living. For the first time, he wondered what she did for a living-- she couldn't very well go to work in an office if she was wearing someone else's body. Whatever it was, it had to be a source of income that she was still getting, as she couldn't pay her bills with his credit cards. One of the upstairs rooms was sealed off, locked all the time, and he could smell paint through the door. Perhaps she was a freelance artist or something? It was hard for him to imagine that such a lout could have an artistic gift, but then, artistic talent did sometimes go along with twisted mentalities.

She didn't catch him with the bills, and he didn't let on that he knew her name now. She did, frequently, catch him reading the newspaper, or watching the news on television as he vacuumed the den, with the sound turned off and the closed-captioning on. She punished him when she caught him at it, but since she never threatened to use the one real lever she had on him to make him stop, he put up with the risk of punishment as acceptable. Apparently she didn't classify such behavior as real disobedience.

For real disobedience-- attempting to escape or commit suicide, resisting sex, balking at direct orders, talking back to her-- she had warned him that she would murder innocents. He didn't dare try. It didn't matter that he had to choke back bile and fury as well as the defiant replies he wanted to make, when she said something particularly degrading or untruthful. It didn't matter that bowing his head to her and obeying her idiot whims was one of the hardest things he'd had to do in recent memory. He would not be the one who suffered, if he failed. And as willing as he might be to break a few innocent eggs in the making of the omelette of mutant freedom, the one thing that separated him from a monster-- the one thing he had to cling to, to define his morality, to let himself believe that he could be a good person in any way at all-- was that he had never, and would never, hurt the innocent for personal pleasure. Which also translated into pushing the body snatcher into hurting the innocent because his own pride could not bear what she required of him. He would not, could not, do that-- as horrible as he found it to feign subservience, he had done it before when nothing more than his own life was at stake. He had bent his head before the Nazis, worse horrors than the body snatcher by far. He couldn't do it again to save his own life, but to save others-- he had no choice.

So the small disobediences, the stolen food and the snatched paragraphs of news, were all he had to assert himself, and she allowed those because she enjoyed punishing him so much. When he failed to complete work on time or she caught him doing something she'd forbidden, the punishment generally involved something from her twisted arsenal of sexual fetishes. These were sickeningly humiliating, and often very painful, but rarely involved any kind of serious damage-- for instance, she usually beat him with a belt rather than a whip, which left wide, sore welts but hardly ever broke his skin or left a scar. The rapes themselves left him bleeding almost all the time, but never seriously-- not that he had much experience to gauge what a "serious" level of vaginal bleeding was, but she assured him that what he was suffering was less severe than menstrual bleeding, and that based on her experience in torturing this body, making it bleed and then occupying it again, it wasn't dangerous or permanently damaging. And anything that didn't damage him permanently, he could endure. It was a calculus he'd first learned in Auschwitz-- the fine art of trying to disobey just enough to make your life endurable, not enough to get you killed. In Auschwitz, the disobediences had centered around acquiring food and not dying of overwork, while here they were considerably less vital to physical survival, but the principle was the same.

Her sexual tastes had changed-- simply raping him wasn't enough for her anymore. Most of the time, the rapes had taken on a surreal, hyperbolic quality, involving role-playing, outrageous costumes and bondage in various bizarre positions. The punishments tied into that, although she would find excuses to hurt him, or hurt him without bothering to come up with an excuse, if she wanted to. Occasionally she videotaped the goings-on as well, after she'd figured out how to use her powers around a videocamera _without_ erasing the tape. On one particularly horrific occasion, she'd made herself a replica of his costume and impersonated him, doing a frighteningly good impression of his speech patterns, while keeping him gagged so he couldn't protest and spoil her illusion. Fortunately, she hadn't videotaped that one, or repeated it-- yet.

Erik could understand all that, though. He had never known desire for power to be sexual himself-- in him, they were two entirely separate issues-- but he could imagine how a sufficiently twisted person could be aroused by a victim's subservience and humiliation. There were other occasions that were far less explainable-- the times when she seemed to show him a weird sort of tenderness, when she kissed and caressed him and held him as if she thought he really was doing this by choice. That, he truly didn't understand. How could you get pleasure out of hurting and humiliating your victim, and then turn around and pretend to make love to them as if you were fantasizing that you actually cared for them? She would also frequently treat him with a bizarre imaginary tenderness after a session of "punishment", which made even less sense.

Her attempts to feign affection during rape disturbed him, but they left him in much better physical shape than her sessions of sadism did, so he did what he could to encourage them. While she was perfectly capable of demanding that he take initiative to give her pleasure, she seemed to get a particular thrill when he did it unprompted, and since he wanted to encourage her not to hurt him, he was careful to give her that when she hadn't deliberately caused him pain. Unfortunately, she sometimes seemed to take that as an invitation, or perhaps challenge, and would try to give him pleasure in return. He was having a hard enough time dealing with the fact that she'd brought him to the point where he _would_ actively seek to please her, regardless of what his coldly rational reasons for doing so were. The fact that she could make him climax, even if it took her an hour of work and was only possible because she knew this body's wiring as well as he knew what to do to her in his own body, was more than he could endure. After the fourth time she'd done it, he learned how to fake orgasm, to make her quit before she'd actually made him betray himself.

He no longer had any notion how he was going to escape. He still believed he would, but it was a belief that had no real force behind it, something he was believing for the sake of his sanity. He couldn't keep going, if he didn't believe that somehow, some way, he'd get out of this. And history _did_ bear out that he always had. Nightmares told him how close he'd come to despairing in Auschwitz, but at the time he hadn't let himself acknowledge that, had concentrated entirely on surviving another day in the belief that if he survived enough of them, someday, somehow, he would be free. And he _had_ won free. He could do it again. Someday, somehow. If he applied the tactical knowledge and the realistic assessment of odds that experience had given him the ability to use to this situation, he would die, because realistically he had no hope. But then, realistically he'd had no hope of escaping Auschwitz, either. Or conquering the world. Or surviving, the hundred times he should have died. He had a great deal of practice at not being a realist, when he needed not to be. So he continued to dig his tunnel to the outside, though the odds were overwhelming that he'd never make it to the surface before she caught him, and he continued to mark off the days, as if just by keeping track of how long he'd been here he could accomplish something constructive.

* * *

Twenty-six days into his captivity, he knew how to tell when the body snatcher was angry, and that, even if her anger wasn't directly at him, it would end up being taken out on him. She was screaming at the telephone, "What do you mean, _denied?_ It can't be denied... put it through again!" as he came in with the beer and sandwiches she'd told him to bring. The tone of her voice made it obvious that, even if she solved whatever problem this was, she'd _still_ most likely take out the anger she'd suffered on him. His stomach clenched, and he had to fight to keep the look of hopeless rage off his face.

"Goddamnit!" She slammed the phone down, and turned toward him, her face suffused with fury. "_Your_ credit card just got declined," she told him nastily, as if expecting him to be able to fix it, or blaming him for the situation.

"I do not have an infinite line of credit," he said, trying very, very hard not to let his tone go sardonic, not to show what an idiot he thought her. "How much have you spent?"

"Enough, apparently. Put that down here!"

He obeyed. "How much money do you have?" she asked, magnetically removing the cap on the beer bottle and swigging some down.

"A great deal."

It was the wrong thing to say. Power shoved him toward her, and her hand reached up and grabbed him by the throat. "I didn't just hear you wising off to me, did I?"

"No, sir." In his own mind, he counted her as female, since he counted himself as male; however, she seemed to want to be thought of as male.

"That's funny, I could have sworn you just said something sarcastic to me. Are you calling me a liar?"

She was looking for an excuse to punish him. There wasn't going to be any way to get out of this. He lowered his eyes. This little scenario had played out enough times that he didn't even need to choke down bile anymore when he said, "I'm sorry, sir. I didn't mean to."

The body snatcher flung him to the floor. "We'll have to do something about that wise mouth of yours," she said. "Later. Right now, though, you get a temporary reprieve, _if_ you answer the question. How much money do you have?"

"I'm not sure. Over a million, perhaps two million." This was another lie-- he was worth something like a hundred times that. He hadn't actually checked the figures in quite some time. Even after he had his accountant create a foundation to disburse the seed capital, the gold he'd stolen from HYDRA, back to as many of its original owners as were still alive, his other sources-- investments, the interest he'd made while he'd had the whole thing, and additional gold he'd pulled out of asteroids in the course of building yet another Asteroid M-- had left him with over 200 million last time he checked. There was no way he could finance rebuilding Asteroid M, or acquiring the non-ferrous materials he needed for his bases, or paying for food for an entire small city, without that kind of money. However, the body snatcher had no way of knowing that, and two million would sound fabulously wealthy to her. He hoped.

It worked. Her eyes widened. "Two _million_ dollars?"

"I haven't checked my accounts in months. It might be less than that by now."

The body snatcher grinned maliciously. "Well, here's what we're going to do. You're going to take all that money, and you're going to transfer it to me. If you don't, you know what will happen."

The murder of innocents. He lowered his head and let his expression go dull, resigned. It wasn't hard. He'd done it far too many times in the days since she'd killed the boy, and most of those times it had been real. "Yes," he said softly. "I know."

"A guy like you, wanted mutant terrorist, I figure you must do a lot of your banking by remote. Letters with notarized signatures and whatnot. We aren't going to have to go anyplace in person to do this, I don't imagine." Her tone indicated that they'd better not have to.

Erik looked up. "I'll need a pen, paper and a fax machine. I'll also need a name for you to deposit a check under. I'll simply write a letter to my broker telling him to cut a check for the balance of the account and make it out to a new name-- I've done this several times, so he'll hardly question it."

"You're taking this well."

"When I get my body back, I can raise more funds easily enough," he said sharply, unwilling to let her pursue _that_ line of thought to its logical conclusion. "You've stolen things I value far more than money; why should I care that you've made a pauper out of me, when I'm still your prisoner?"

She laughed. "I love you, Magneto. You're _still_ clinging to this fantasy that you're going to get your body back, even though you and I both know it ain't gonna happen. Here." The body snatcher pulled a pad out of a drawer under the phone, and handed it to him with a pen. "Write your letter. Have the check made out to Lee Davies, and send it to PO Box 559, Philadelphia, PA 19104."

"Philadelphia? Isn't that rather far away?"

"At the speeds this body can fly? You know better than that." Another cruel smile spread over her lips. "Oh no, I know. You were trying to get me to tell you where we are again. I think I'll have to punish you for that too."

She had never forbidden him to try to get her to tell where they were. He bit that protest back, knowing it would be pointless, and bent over his letter, wondering if there was any way he could slip in a coded message for Aaron. The accountant was a very old friend of his, a man he'd known in Auschwitz, who almost certainly had to know who Erik was but had so far carefully managed to avoid ever asking any questions to which "Magneto" might be the answer. Which meant that there was no way to quickly and cleanly explain to Aaron what had happened, and Erik couldn't risk dragging him into this-- he had never involved his old friend in his bizarre lifestyle before, and he couldn't take the chance that doing so now might make him a target of the body snatcher. Instead, he simply requested that account number 178493-20 be cleaned out, and the entire balance put in a check made out to Lee Davies, to be mailed to the address the body snatcher had given. He signed it, with the pseudonym he generally used with Aaron (Aaron knew his real name, but Erik felt safer with that name kept off paper everywhere), and wrote the fax number in the lower margin.

"Peachy. I'll fax this off today. In the meantime, you told me you have some other credit card numbers memorized? Give me one."

He gave her one of the ones with, for him, a low credit limit, and she called up and completed her transaction, whatever it was she was buying. When she was done, she appeared to be in a much better mood; she didn't even punish him when she discovered that her beer had gotten warm, but simply sent him to get another one.

After she finished her food and her beer, she ordered him to her bedroom. He obeyed, keeping his head as high as he dared without triggering a beating for being arrogant, and his face as expressionless as possible. He shouldn't be afraid. He'd endured far worse than what he was about to get. Zaladane's tortures, the mental violation so much worse than any physical one, less than a year ago. Wolverine's claws tearing through the flesh of his belly, slicing through ribs. Dozens of beatings by assorted superheroes, in combat. The terrible headaches that used to plague him, the pain he lived with for most of his early career. Auschwitz. No, he should be immune to pain and humiliation. Ridiculous that he might fear what a jumped-up punk kid who didn't want him dead might think of to do to him. The dryness in his throat, the nausea churning in his stomach, the tension and hyperawareness all through him, these were foolish reactions, unworthy of him. All she was going to do was rape and beat him. He'd been through so much worse. This shouldn't affect him at all.

When she ordered him to lay down on the bed on his back, spread-eagled, and then the shackles came up from the iron posts of the bed and locked around his wrists and ankles, he actually had to fight to keep visible signs of the fear off his face. She rarely bound him unless she planned on causing a _lot_ of pain. This one was going to be bad.

It was.

Afterward she lay next to him, tracing with a light finger the bruises and welts she'd left on his skin. Erik stared at the ceiling and tried to pretend he was anywhere but here. It didn't work very well. It had been easier to escape into fantasies when he'd been a child, when the possibilities seemed as if they would be infinite if only he could survive long enough to get out of there. Unrealizable dreams had stopped being enough for him years ago, when he'd made the decision to actively pursue his dreams, however outrageous they seemed. He'd lost the ability to lose himself in fantasy, becoming entirely too focused on practical planning to make his daydreams come true, and right now the only thing he could bring himself to try to plan was his escape from here... and he hadn't the vaguest idea how he was going to do that.

"That was nice," she said, making no move to release him from his bonds. "You're shaping up well, you know. A year from now, and you'll have forgotten you ever were anything other than my obedient sex slave."

He wished he could dismiss that possibility with as much as confidence as he'd have had two weeks ago. "Will you want me to finish the chores now?" he asked dully.

"Oh, no no. We're not done here. I've got a new trick to show you."

Not done here. The despair he felt must have shown on his face, because she laughed. "No, no. You'll like this, I promise. Well. Maybe you won't, given your weird hangups, but it won't hurt, anyway."

If anything, that made matters worse. He focused on a small blotch of plaster on the ceiling, trying to keep his breathing even, trying to keep his face empty of all expression. Her hand stroked the side of his head. "Tell me what you think."

The world exploded, brilliant light and migraine pain kaleidoscoping across his consciousness. Erik screamed, trying to double over, trying to press his hands to his head, the fact that he was bound and couldn't do either of those things not entirely registering through the pain. And then it faded, and he felt an uncontrollable twitchiness, his body jerking in tiny tic-like movements despite all his efforts to hold still. There was a taste of cherries and spinach and his mother's noodle soup, all at once, in his mouth. "What-- what are-- my God, you're trying magnetic induction on my brain, aren't you?"

She grinned down at him. Her image reversed, flipped upside down, went through several distortions. Erik twisted his head, trying to move out of her range, and heard voices, a deafening chorus from his past, screams and lullabies and Xavier arguing with him and Anya's childish voice, drowning anything the body snatcher might have said. And then he was saying something, babbling, words pouring out of his mouth but he couldn't even hear what he was saying, much less censor it.

His head was caught in a vise-like grip. The intrusive hallucinations faded, and he realized that she'd actually caught his head in a metal vise, preventing him from twisting it. Erik stared up at her. "You can't do this," he said, horrified to hear the pleading note in his voice. "This isn't something simple, something my body would have any reflexive knowledge of doing. If you don't know what you're doing you could cause a stroke, or an epileptic seizure, or permanent brain damage. I experimented on animals for _years_ before I dared try this."

But of course he had tried, eventually experimenting on humans because he'd needed to know how, needed to induce people to tell him the truth, and if they could resist the manipulation of their speech centers to make them babble everything that came into their heads, then he had to know how to cause them pain. The Nazis he'd been hunting had been hardened men, resistant to the terror his powers could inspire, resistant to torture. He hadn't been able to do them serious damage, not if he was going to turn them over to the Israeli authorities-- not that the Israelis would care if some Nazi war criminals suffered, but it would make them look bad to the world court. So he'd experimented with magnetic induction of the pain centers, to make them suffer and break and tell him everything he wanted to know about where their compatriots were hiding without causing them any overt damage. And if he lost one or two... well, they resisted arrest.

The memories of his own inhuman actions, of studies in the art of torture that had culminated in using his abilities on fellow mutants, rose up and sickened him. For a despairing moment, he felt that he deserved this, everything she was about to do. He'd used this power to torture others exactly as she was about to do to him. And he hadn't known as well as he could have what he was doing, either. He'd accidentally killed some or done their brains serious damage before he'd gotten the process right. Exactly as she might now do to him.

"I can do anything I want to," she said, her voice hard. "Have you forgotten? You don't give orders here, Magneto."

Perhaps he deserved this. But he had to try to keep her from doing it regardless. "No, I-- I only meant, you wouldn't wish to damage this brain. You might end up destroying your own mutant power, so that if you ever do need to switch back, you'd never be able to leave again."

She stroked his forehead. "Oh, admit it. You're terrified. You don't want me to do this because you can't imagine that anyone else could have learned to do something in a month that took _you_ a long time to learn, and because you think I'm going to hurt you. Isn't that right? You're scared, aren't you?"

There was really no point in denying it. With her fingers stroking his forehead, she could feel the sweat that was pouring from it, the clamminess of his skin. If she was monitoring his heart rate-- which she was, hopefully, as if she started to interfere with his autonomic nervous system and she didn't catch it, he would die-- she could surely see that his pulse had skyrocketed. "Yes," he whispered. Maybe begging would save him this time. Sometimes it did. "Please, don't do this."

The body snatcher laughed. "Don't worry. I've practiced. But you'll have to tell me exactly what it feels like-- otherwise I might mistake pain for pleasure. As long as you cooperate, you won't suffer. In fact, it'll feel quite good."

So she was going to try magnetic induction of the pleasure centers, then. Ironically, he himself hadn't seriously used that until he fell in love with Aleytys, and had used it once or twice to enhance her pleasure-- he'd _known_ how to do it, he'd tried it on animals and captured Savage Landers, but he'd never actually used it until then, and had never used it as a weapon. Uselessly he tugged at his bonds, tried to free his head.

"Oh, stop that. You know you can't get away. Now tell me how that feels."

There was no pain, or pleasure, or any somatic sensations. But his vision had whited out, to be replaced by a shifting kaleidoscope, like what one saw when one pressed against one's eyes. He was silent. The thought occurred to pretend that this was significant, but no, she was probably monitoring his heart rate. She'd be able to tell.

"Don't want to tell me what that one does? Oh well, I can see it doesn't do much for you. How about this?"

And he was burning alive, what felt like every nerve ending flaring with pain. Erik screamed, thrashing, and the pain stopped. "Didn't like that, did you?" He continued to be silent, breathing hard with reaction. "_Did_ you? I mean, we can go back to that one if you liked it--"

"No!"

The word came out almost without volition. He damned himself, damned his weakness and his fear. She smiled. "How about this one?"

Insects were crawling all over his body, a horrible itching everywhere. Again he struggled, trying to free his hands so he could scratch, trying to scrape as much of his body against the bed as he could to relieve the itching. "Do you like that one?"

"Please-- please, stop--"

Her free hand ran over his breasts. Maddening. If she would only scratch instead of stroking, it would be such a relief, but the stroking was only making the itch worse. "You're not screaming, and you're twitching and writhing, and begging me to stop. This must be it."

He should let her go on thinking so. He should endure the horrible itch, letting her think he was feeling pleasure, so she wouldn't be able to humiliate him by making him climax. She pinched his nipple, making it flare with itching as her hand moved away. "It isn't, please, stop, please..."

"Isn't what?"

"It isn't whatever you were wanting me to feel!" Her hand was on his hip. _Oh God scratch there please it's driving me mad don't know how much longer I can go without begging you for release what am I talking about? I'm begging now, can't make matters worse, doesn't matter she's going to bring me down as low as she can, can't stop her oh please make it stop_ "It itches. Terribly."

"Oh." She looked surprised. "Really? I thought that one was it. Well, how about--"

He had once been sufficiently driven by sexual need too long unfulfilled that he'd changed his plans, decided to call off an attack on a base he was going after so he could kidnap and seduce one of the superheroines who'd attacked him. It was not one of his finer moments, and it was the only time in his life that he'd been ruled by his desires rather than ruling them. Until now.

There was nothing to compare this to. It was as if he'd been dipped in a cauldron of pure sexual heat. Every part of the borrowed body was afire with need, to be touched, aroused, fulfilled. All of his willpower wasn't enough to keep him from moaning, from writhing, though he managed not to beg.

"There we go. That's better, isn't it?"

He stared up at her, hatred, rage and humiliation at war with desperate need. She ran her hand over his body, along his side back up to his breasts, making him shudder involuntarily with pleasure. The first time she'd made him feel pleasure he'd begged her to stop. Since then he'd learned that there was absolutely no point to that-- she wouldn't. All he could hope to do now was keep from begging for her touch. A lifetime of mastering his own desires, and he was reduced to that, that all he could do was _not_ beg to be raped, and even that was starting to dissolve under her ministrations. She could be a cruel tease rather than a brutal rapist when she chose to be. Orgasm racked him, and didn't satiate at all, the stimulation to the brain keeping him in a state of frantic arousal. Most of him was horrified-- she could keep him like this indefinitely then, needing and never being fulfilled, climaxing and never truly achieving release, until he finally did beg or she got bored with the sport. Part of him, however, was weaker than the rest, and embraced the torment hungrily, and that part was unfortunately mostly in control of the body. When she kissed him, all the willpower he had wasn't enough to keep him from responding, from pressing himself against her and grinding his hips, seeking stimulation desperately.

The induction faltered when she took him, her concentration no longer sufficient to maintain such a focused magnetic field, but the unwanted arousal didn't dissipate. Unlike pain, which was usually strictly a matter of nerves either firing or not, pleasure was a synergistic thing, stimulation releasing hormones which prolonged and intensified arousal, so even without the direct stimulation of his brain to generate sexual desire, the arousal that the stimulation had already caused was enough to carry him. For the first time, the sensation of her thrusting inside him was pleasurable, desired, needed. He hated the pleasure, but couldn't stop feeling it. The orgasm, when it finally hit, was strong enough to white out the world for a moment, and without the induction continuing it was actually a genuine release this time, leaving him strengthless, every muscle as limp as overcooked pasta afterward. The body snatcher finished a few thrusts later, while he still lay shell-shocked and weak underneath her, and pulled out.

"See? Now wasn't that nice?" she purred at him.

At the best of times he was somewhat subject to post-coital depression, and this was hardly the best of times. The lessening of resistance caused by the orgasm, and the utter humiliation of what he'd just been made to do and feel, crashed in on him. He managed not to sob, but he couldn't stop his eyes from welling with tears.

"Poor dear." She kissed his wet eyes, a parody of comfort. "Someday you'll learn to like that; you'll live for it, beg for it, do anything if only I'll fuck you like that. We've just got to get you over this arrogant belief that you can control what you want and feel, and get you to accept that you're going to be a slave no matter what you do, so you might as well relax and enjoy it."

"I'll kill myself first," he whispered.

"Naah. You're too proud. You won't admit defeat. And when the pride's finally broken, you'll realize how much pleasure you could get out of this life, if you just didn't let your pride get in your way. Think about it, Magneto." She ran her hand through his hair, releasing the vise and moving it with power away from his head. "I'm going to fuck you every day whether you like it or not. But imagine if it was like that every time. Imagine if, instead of being a painful rape, it was the best fuck you ever had in your life, every night."

He was imagining it. It was one of the most horrible things she'd threatened him with since he'd been captured. Sex was sacred, something to be shared between lovers, an act of love and total trust. It was bad enough to be raped, but to be made to enjoy it that way violated the essential nature of what sexuality should be, turned pleasure itself into something disgusting and sordid, the way he'd thought it was before he'd learned to see the transforming power of love. For the first time it occurred to him that even if he managed to escape before she broke him completely, he might have suffered irreparable psychological damage-- not that he hadn't suffered plenty of that in the past, not that he hadn't overcome everything life had thrown at him so far, but if she kept doing things like this to him, he doubted he'd ever be willingly able to make love again, once he was free. And wondered if it had already progressed that far. Right now the thought of sex disgusted him beyond belief. That might just be a temporary reaction to what she'd done to him... or it might be more permanent.

And that itself assumed that he would really get away.

* * *

She let him get up and finish his chores, fed him, let him go outside for half an hour, made him watch as she picked out more outrageous leather clothes for her night on the town, and finally locked him in his basement cell for the night. He'd managed to shut off the horror of what had happened as long as she was watching him, the same way he'd learned to shut off the horror of the dead bodies, of the endless procession of the dead from the gas chambers to the furnaces, the child who'd known her fate and challenged him, demanding to know why he was helping to kill his own people. A temporary shunting, blocking off the memories until he was no longer in immediate danger. In Auschwitz he'd always been in immediate danger. The temporary block had turned permanent, and he'd gone through what he had to do while thinking about it as absolutely little as possible. He'd lost that skill. When he stepped into the shower to try to wash her away, the memory of what she'd done to him and his own helplessness to stop her came back, overwhelming anything else he could think. He tried to fight it off, tried to concentrate on soap and shampoo, but the touch of the warm water, his own hands on this body scrubbing it, brought back vivid tactile memories, and with them the despair that he'd felt at the time. Sheltered by hot water, with no one to hear him over the sound of the shower, Erik collapsed to his knees and sobbed brokenly, for long minutes convinced that he really never was going to get out of here, that things had come full circle and now he would pay for surviving the first time, for all his crimes since, by being a slave for the rest of his life.

He'd kill himself first.

No, that wasn't even an option. She was malicious enough to carry out what she'd threatened even when he was no longer around to see it. She'd threatened to torture innocents to death if he tried to kill himself, and he didn't doubt that she'd do it even if he succeeded, and escaped her that way.

There was no way out.

Erik leaned his head against the tile, utterly spent. The water washed over him in a steady curtain of soothing heat. He wasn't beaten yet. He refused to believe that. Though he had no faith in _any_ rescuers and still less in the one he was thinking of, it was becoming painfully clear that he had only one hope.

Charles had always thought Magneto was a latent telepath. Erik still considered the idea unlikely. His magnetic powers had allowed him to imitate some of the trappings of telepathy, that was all. Magnetic induction on the brain could produce mind control effects, and electromagnetic amplification of a non-telepath's mental radiation could mimic the telepathic application of broadcasting one's thoughts, to allow him to contact sensitives (such as true telepaths) at a distance. It wasn't truly relevant in either case, since even if he had had latent pools of telepathy buried under the weight of his natural mind shields, that would have gone along with his body, he was sure. In either case, however, he had, in the past, joined his mind to Charles,' in an attempt to amplify Charles' power to the point where he could telepathically contact Galactus. And even before that, they'd always been sensitive to each other-- he'd been able to detect Charles using his power in San Marco, and Charles had frequently been able to zero in on him _without_ Cerebro's help.

He closed his eyes, trying to empty his mind of anything except his mental image of Charles Xavier. If he could only contact Charles... it hardly mattered now if Charles betrayed him, rewrote his mind to conform to his wishes. Better to be Charles' slave than the body snatcher's, and with his own body back he'd have a much greater chance of escaping any such control that Charles might exert. Shut out the intrusive memories, shut out the humiliation and the lingering remains of pain. Shut out everything but the driving need to contact the one person who might be able to save him now, and save the innocents who the body snatcher would kill if Erik failed. The white noise of the falling water and rhythmic warming pattern as it cascaded over his body aided in achieving the trance state he needed, as he focused everything he had on a desperate call to Charles, calling out over the distance between them, pleading for help.

Eventually he realized that his body had stiffened up, that the water washing over him was cold now, and that there had been no response from Charles. Whatever power had enabled him to contact Charles at a distance before, it had gone with his body. He had to have been calling for hours, the way his muscles were cramped from kneeling in the tub, and there hadn't been the faintest touch of a response. It was entirely possible that they were out of Charles' range. He himself had altered the Earth's magnetic field to inhibit Charles' long-distance communication ability, years ago.

Hoist on his own petard. Again.

He shut off the now-cold water and dragged himself out of the shower. His fingertips had gone numb from waterlogging and he could barely stand. There was no hope left. If he couldn't reach Xavier, and he couldn't escape or even suicide without the body snatcher murdering innocents... oh, there was still some chance that she'd accidentally run into someone with a grudge against Magneto, who'd take her down because she didn't have his experience with the powers. But since that was most likely to happen while he was in his cell, and no one who took down Magneto would expect "him" to have a prisoner locked up in the basement of a house somewhere, if it happened Erik would probably starve to death. He wasn't at all sure he could dig his tunnel to the outside before running out of cans, if they were all he had to eat. And he'd lose his body and his powers, and anyway, what was most likely to happen was that she'd switch as soon as she was losing badly, leaving him in the middle of a fight, disoriented and possibly even unconscious from the switch, and so he would die and she would stay alive to kill and rape again. No, realistically he couldn't even hope for help from that quarter. There was to be no help, no hope, no freedom again.

Despite his exhaustion, it took a very long time before he could make himself sleep.

* * *

He was awake when the body snatcher came for him the next day; he'd slept fitfully and finally had awakened near dawn, unable to make himself fall asleep again. Exhaustion dragged at him, but with leaden eyes and leaden feet he forced himself to begin the morning round of chores. Work would give him something to occupy himself, something to turn his mind away from the despairing thoughts of last night.

She didn't try anything spectacularly horrible that day, as if recognizing how close to the edge of despair she'd pushed him and granting him a reprieve, though he very much doubted that that was her motive. The routine allowed him to fall back into a numb, mechanical mode of existence, going through the motions to stay alive and as unhurt as possible. He was actually almost starting to recover a little of his emotional strength back-- and then it came nighttime, time to mark off another day he'd survived on his little tally. Twenty-seven days.

Tomorrow was day 28. Four whole weeks. And a normal woman's menstrual cycle was 28 days. While the sporadic bleeding from injury had been going on for three weeks, there had been no flow so steady and so unrelated to painful and damaging rapes that he could point to it with certainty as a menstrual period. Without knowing this body, there was no way to know for sure, but from what he knew from being intimately involved with women, it was very likely that he'd missed a cycle. He'd been shoving that particular fear to the back of his mind, but the date made it impossible not to notice it anymore.

Two days later, that fear, along with all the others, was still weighing on him, dragging him down and dulling his will to live again, when she brought him upstairs to the kitchen in the morning and set him to work. A _Daily Bugle_ was lying folded on the kitchen table, next to a half-eaten buttered bagel. That raised his spirits very, very slightly-- though if he thought about it, he'd be horrified that an opportunity to pilfer food should make him feel better, it was something he worked very hard at not thinking about. Food she'd abandoned was fair game; she didn't even punish him for that, clearly enjoying the notion of him being her human garbage disposal. He grabbed the bagel and devoured it in three mouthfuls while flipping the newspaper over to read the headlines. The bagel turned to chalk in his mouth as he read the top headline-- ELECTROKILLER STRIKES AGAIN. Mouth dry and a growing knot in his stomach, he read the article.

A serial killer was preying on young men in New York City, Philadelphia, Washington DC, Baltimore and Boston. Eight young men had been raped and electrocuted. Seven of the victims had been homosexuals; the eighth had been a 26-year-old millionaire, a stock market advisor on his way up in the pathways of power. His home showed signs of forced entry, his window smashed, the iron bars on his windows twisted and torn free, his burglar alarm shorted out and his phone lines destroyed from a power surge. The other victims turned up dead in hotel rooms or their own apartments with no signs of forced entry, indicating to the police that they were letting the killer in, that he might be someone they knew, or possibly a casual sexual assignation for the night. Police weren't even sure that the stockbroker was killed by the same person-- the modus operandi was the same, rape and electrocution with the marks of shackles on the body, but they couldn't see a reason why a serial killer who preyed on gay men that invited him home would suddenly force himself on a heterosexual man that hadn't exposed himself to the danger.

Erik, privy to rather more information than they had, saw the connection immediately. All men were potential targets of the body snatcher-- she saw all of them as powerful beings who needed to be hurt and humbled. But the homosexual victims were easy targets, people she could seduce and lure into her clutches. The stockbroker, on the other hand, had been a genuinely powerful man. Presumably her sexual tastes ran to young men, or there would be a whole host of raped and murdered elderly and middle-aged men in those cities.. dear God, one of the cities in her range was the capital of the United States. Senators and Congressmen were likely to start turning up dead. And while mutant involvement had not currently been confirmed-- New York was full of non-mutant crazies who did things like build electrified suits and commit crimes with them-- sooner or later it would be. In fact, if she left fingerprints on any of her victims, the killings would quickly be blamed on Magneto, whose fingerprints were on file from the time he'd surrendered to stand trial.

The body snatcher was still killing innocents. He had humbled himself, had bent his head and his knee, gone as low as he could go, to keep her from murdering innocents, to let her take out her rage and her perverse lusts on him instead of innocent men. And she'd lied to him. She'd brutally humiliated him, in ways she never could have without his consent, because he'd thought she would spare others. And she hadn't.

White-hot rage swamped him. For a moment, all he could think of was an overwhelming need to kill her. He began scanning the kitchen, looking for weapons. Why were so many kitchen utensils made of metal? Oh how he would love to pick up the carving knife and drive it into her guts, but his experience with trying to hit her with a can and a metal spade told him that he couldn't use anything ferrous on her any more than it could have been used on him. She might not be as expert as he was, but she was good enough. There was little in the kitchen that wasn't metal. Wooden breadboard, wooden spoon, plastic spatula, plastic plates and cups. None of it had the weight, the strength he wanted. But perhaps something would. He went to the refrigerator and smiled grimly to see the beer bottles, sharp glass just waiting to be invoked with a blow, full of liquid that would sting and blind, and, except for the caps, totally non-metallic. Easy enough to fix. There was a can opener with a bottlecap remover sitting on the refrigerator; he reached up, grabbed it and yanked the bottlecap off the nearest bottle of beer.

"Stealing my beer?" He hadn't heard her come in. Her voice behind him held a mocking tone, arrogantly sure she was still in control. "I'm going to have to--"

It didn't matter what she would do. He pivoted, with his hand wrapped tightly around the middle of the bottle, and swung the liquid inside at her face.

She flung an arm up, uselessly. He couldn't tell if she'd tried to shield; it took serious power and skill to shield against liquid. The body snatcher screamed and staggered back as the cold liquid hit her eyes. Erik followed up with a blow from the bottle itself to her head, and then kicked her in the stomach, while she was blinded. The rattle of glass behind him alerted him, and he leapt out of the way with desperate speed as the refrigerator toppled forward, almost crushing him. It managed to slam into his shoulder on the way down. He wanted to scream with the pain, but he didn't have long. Had to take her out now, while she was hurt. Her eyes were still closed, she was still doubled over, but the door to the kitchen had slammed shut-- no escape-- and the contents of the silverware drawer flew out. Once she got her eyes open, he was dead. He grabbed the breadboard-- heavier, stronger than the bottle-- and lunged forward. Just as her eyes opened, fixing his position, he slammed the breadboard down on top of her head, as hard as he absolutely could. The silverware flew at him, but fell from the air before more than a handful of the forks and butter knives could hit him as he brought the breadboard down again and again, shrieking in inarticulate rage. She went from her knees to sprawled on the ground, and it didn't occur to him that he actually _didn't_ want to kill the body she was in until he saw blood under his blows, bright red welling up and matting the thick white hair.

He stopped, breathing hard, and stared down at her unconscious form. And she _was_ unconscious. She had moaned weakly, struggling, as he'd kept hitting her-- now she was silent, and he couldn't even hear her breathe. He knelt down and checked the pulse at her throat. Still strong. He hadn't killed her.

Did he want to?

The fact that she hadn't jumped yet, after a brutal beating like that, made him think she needed to be conscious and aware to make a jump. If he killed that body now, he would probably survive, and it would be her that died. It would be quick, and ensure that no more innocents fell to her. It would be sure.

And it would leave him powerless, trapped in _this_ body forever.

Bile rose in his throat. He had never seriously contemplated that thought before-- had never considered killing her and living on in this body. He'd thought about killing them both to take her down, not about surviving like this. A wave of violent hatred for this body, for its puny size and its vulnerable puffy breasts and the fat on it and its lack of strength and the female organs so easy to hurt, so easy to invade, swamped him. He'd been entirely focused on the thought of escaping here, on using this body as a tool to flee and then get his own powerful, male body back. The depth of disgust he felt for this body when he even contemplated being stuck with it was overwhelming. No. No. He would make sacrifices to save innocent humans, yes, he would do what he could to save them, even though they'd condemn him and his out of hand. But he would _not_ sacrifice his power and his manhood for them forever. Bend his knee for a while? He could do that. Yes, though it filled him with rage and horror and it had been slowly eroding his strength of will, he had done it. But there were limits. He was hardly one of the X-Men, to sacrifice everything he held dear for a world that would spit on him for his troubles, and he would _not_ kill his own body. There were too many ways he could imagine to get it back, and then kill her. He wasn't going to be shortsighted out of fear _now_, and destroy everything that was valuable to him.

The nausea the thought of staying forever in this body had brought abated as soon as he made the decision not to kill her, and his head cleared. He did have to do something. The last time he'd had this chance, he'd punched her hard enough that it should have left her out for an hour or two. She'd woken up and pursued him in ten minutes. Which he probably should have expected, since a punch that would leave an ordinary man cold for an hour _was_ something he himself would wake up from in ten minutes, in his own body. Though the blood matting her hair disturbed him, her pulse was strong enough that he expected she'd be out for an hour or less this time, maybe much less. He had to do something to slow her down.

Erik grabbed the paring knife-- the sharpest kitchen knife she had-- off the floor, pulled up her pant leg, and swiftly cut a deep slice into her leg, on the inside surface just above the ankle. Blood welled. He did the same for the other leg. The paring knife was sharp enough, and the cut quick enough, that there would be little pain, not enough to wake her up and not much, in comparison to her head, when she finally did awake. But she would lose blood, and the moment she stood up, the blood flow would increase enormously. And since people didn't look at their feet and the blood would be soaked up by her socks and hidden by her pant legs, it might be a while before she realized it. It was a risk-- if she remained unconscious for too long, she could conceivably bleed to death-- but he didn't think she would stay out that long. And if she panicked at the sight of the body she occupied bleeding, perhaps he'd switch-- _he_ knew how to use his powers to slow the flow of blood and rapidly force clotting, but since she hadn't been cut up in this body before it was unlikely that she did. Even if she didn't switch, it would slow her down-- particularly in the long run, as that body would steal iron from the electromagnetic channels to repair a blood loss, which would leave her powers severely weakened if she didn't know to stoke up on iron afterward.

Time to get out of here. He considered stealing the car, and ditched the idea immediately. If she'd thought to put any kind of magnetic signaler into the car, so she could easily locate it, it would be a deathtrap the moment she woke up. He could drive like a bat out of hell, and it wouldn't prevent her from tracking him. There was no guarantee that she _had_ put such a signaling device in-- it wasn't something he'd have thought of to do within a few years of developing the powers, much less a month-- but she had consistently shown creativity in implementing the powers. It was probably understandable-- when he'd first come to his power, there were far, far fewer electromagnetically active devices in the world. In a world of radar detectors and infrared burglar alarms and cellular phones, the thought of implanting alarms might simply be much more obvious than it had been to him. So he couldn't take the risk. By the same token, he couldn't use the road to escape-- it would be entirely too easy for her to track him on the road, just as it had been last time. No, it would have to be the woods, where her ability to fly would give her no real advantage, where the electrical auras of so much riotous growth would prevent her from picking him out at a distance, and where his small size would allow him plenty of hiding places and passage on trails that a large man simply couldn't take.

All of this ran through his mind in seconds, as he raced out the door and headed for the woods at full speed. He hit the dirt path running. It was narrow and badly overgrown, so the underbrush lashed at his legs and immediately entangled the skirt. Quickly he yanked the skirt off and twisted it, winding it into a rope as he kept running forward, and awkwardly tying it around his waist as he plunged on through the woods. This afforded absolutely no protection to his bare legs, but at least the skirt wouldn't get caught and slow him down. He ran with one arm over his face, so that when branches and twigs slapped against him, they wouldn't catch him in the eye. His blouse, already damaged from sharp glass from his last escape attempt and weakened from rough use and too many washings, tore as branches whipped at the rips already in it.

It was probably a good ten minutes before the stitch in his side became too painful to endure any longer and he had to slow down. Erik glanced back at the way he'd come. No. Fool. His headlong rush might have put distance between him and her, but he'd left plenty of evidence of his passage. If she had the most rudimentary tracking skills, she could follow him. He grabbed the nearest tree branch that he could reach, and climbed up onto it-- he wasn't actually strong enough to lift himself onto the branch, so he ended up having to use his legs to shimmy up the tree. It turned out that bare human legs were great for bracing against bark, if you didn't mind scraping said bare skin raw. The trees were close enough that if he walked carefully out on one of the main, low branches, until the point where it began to sag dangerously under his weight, he could jump and catch a branch of the next tree, there to carefully lower himself onto a lower branch of that tree and circle around until he could find a route to climb higher again. He deliberately angled away from the pathway he'd been on, into the thick of the woods where there was no pathway. Let her try to track him now.

After using seven trees to put distance between himself and the pathway, he carefully lowered himself to the ground, and began pushing his way through the thick growth. He stepped on sharp fallen branches and bracken, almost constantly; it was a good thing he'd been walking about barefoot on a stone floor for a month to build up calluses. His feet would be bleeding and swollen tonight. It didn't matter. As long as they carried him to freedom, he didn't care what price he had to pay.

The pace was too slow. He was carefully pushing branches out of the way so he left little sign of his passing, and that slowed him down far too much. Every sense screamed at him to move as fast as he could, put as much distance between her and him as he was able. Surely he was in deep enough that she could not have followed his trail here. He started to run again, or at least as much as he could in the thick of woods like this. Even with an arm protecting his face, there was no way, here, to prevent the branches lashing and scratching him, on the face, the arms, the legs, tearing the sleeves of his blouse nearly in two, catching in his hair. Rocks and sharp plant matter jabbed into his feet. It didn't matter. He had to run, had to move. Deeper into the woods, further from her, closer to freedom. Every painful stride took him closer to safety. He just had to keep going. This wasn't harder than running on frozen or snow-covered ground with starved stick legs and bare feet. His feet had bled into the snow then, when he and Magda had run, as far and fast from Auschwitz as they could. This was nothing. It was warm out. He couldn't hurt himself all that badly.

Eventually he broke out and onto another path. If he was reading his position right-- and he was going by the sun, with difficulty, being used to an internal compass-- he had been heading more or less north. East was the direction of the driveway, the direction where he'd intersect the road. North, therefore, should eventually hit whatever larger road the smallish rural road he'd found on his first escape attempt intersected with. The path went east, with a northerly bent, and west with a southerly one. He chose the northeast direction and put on a serious burst of speed, fairly flying down the pathway, breaking off to head north again as soon as the stitch in his side became unbearable again. If he never actually stopped, if he pushed on through the areas where he _had_ to go slow when this body forced him to slow down, he could keep making distance. Sooner or later he had to hit the road. Even in Pennsylvania, the woods didn't last forever.

He went on this way for an hour, maybe two. Sometimes he went east, but mostly he kept heading north. He was on the path again, and hadn't encountered any roads yet. Erik was beginning to wonder if he'd miscalculated somehow, when he felt the hairs on his arm stand on end.

It was an awfully familiar sensation, as it invariably accompanied his own raising of power unless he compensated. Terrified, he spun around. No sign of her-- no, there, in the trees far off, a faint blue glow. He found the thickest, deepest stand of bushes around, and drove himself into them, pushing through their welter of branches from the angle behind the bush, facing toward the path, until he was behind and sheltered in them, bush branches jabbing into him everywhere. A scent of ozone, another terribly familiar sensation, wafted through the air, and the blue glow in the distance brightened. He caught up the loamy dirt from the ground and smeared it in patches on his face and legs, folding up the denim skirt to cover his chest because dark blue was closer to the brown and green of the bush than the dirty white of the blouse would be. And then he went absolutely, completely still, barely daring even to breathe, as the blue glow approached closer.

"Come out, come out, wherever you are," she was saying. "Here, little terrorist. Here, little terrorist. Come to papa."

He could see her now, floating past on the path. She wasn't wearing his boots; instead, she was wearing socks over bandages. So his plan had worked, but not well enough to utterly incapacitate her. After that kind of blood loss, she would suffer for any serious magnetic effort she put out... but she'd suffer hours from now when it caught up with her, not right now when it would save him. A stream of varied and polyglot expletives ran through his head, but he didn't dare so much as mouth them-- he couldn't move a single muscle, couldn't risk the motion attracting her attention. Oh God, but he wished he could believe prayer would do him any good. At this range, if she'd shifted her vision to the electromagnetic patterns of force instead of the visual light spectrum, there was no way he could hide. Plants generated electrical fields, but the field put out by a human was much stronger and more complex than that of a bush. If he was recaptured-- don't think about it, don't think about it! _Don't see me. Please, please don't see me. Dear God, don't see me._ He closed his eyes to bare slits, imagining that it would make him less visible-- the fierce glow she was putting out had to be easily reflective off eyes-- and over and over again, silently begged whatever powers there might be not to let her see him, though in his more rational moments he didn't believe there were _any_ powers that listened to human prayers. All he could see through his scarcely-open eyes was the brilliant glow in front of him.

And her voice became more distant, drawing away.

For a moment, he didn't want to dare open his eyes all the way-- not for the rational reason of the reflectance making him visible, but because of the fear that she was standing right to the side with her powerfield shut down, looking at him, pretending to have moved off as a mind game, waiting for him to open his eyes before she pounced. But that was ridiculous. He refused to be that much of a coward. Grimly, he opened one eye fully, rolling it from side to side without moving his head, looking. No sign of her. He opened both eyes and glanced down the path. There was the blue glow receding into the distance.

It was several very long minutes after the glow was no longer visible in the slightest before he could make himself get out of his hiding place and start walking again. His knees had gone weak with terror and relief and the added terror that the relief was false, and he could barely stand. Everything that hurt, hurt far worse now, and he felt a draining exhaustion dragging at him. He couldn't keep going. But he had to. Erik forced himself onward, leaving the path and heading forward into the woods, pushing his way through the underbrush again.

Before long he came to a shallow stream, no deeper than his mid-calves. There were large, flat stepping stones that led halfway into the stream, and then stopped. He took them as far as he could go and sat down on the last one, soaking his aching feet in the cold rushing water. Water got the dirt off his face and legs and hands, and he managed to drink a good bit of it from cupped hands before it occurred to him that it might not be safe. He had no guarantee this was potable water. Oh well. At this point he hardly cared if he came down with dysentery in a few hours, as long as he'd gotten to civilization and safety by then. The water refreshed and strengthened him, and he waded in the stream, heading north-- last he'd seen, the body snatcher was heading south. (And how had she gotten ahead of him, anyway? Had she gone directly to the road to check for him and swept her way inward?)

After close to an hour of following the stream, he reached the end of the woods. Up above him there was a road of some sort, at the top of a steep grassy embankment. Erik clambered up the embankment. A major road of some kind. It was completely divided, with two eastbound lanes, and the westbound lanes invisible behind a stand of trees dividing the two directions. Erik untied his skirt and wrapped it the normal way around his waist again, covering his legs. He walked the eastbound direction, keeping well to the grass on his side of the shoulder, for another half hour or so. Cars whizzed past him constantly. He considered trying to hitchhike, but considering how wild he must look-- hair a mess, clothing ripped, skirt a mass of wrinkles, no shoes, face scratched by branches-- he suspected it wasn't a great idea.

Half an hour later, he encountered a sign marking this as Interstate 80, and not long after that, a placard informed him there would be an exit in two miles. The thought of civilization, telephones, someplace to eat, energized him, and he began to jog, unable to drive his abused body into an actual run.


	2. Crawling from the Ruins

_I'm not crawling around looking for a friend  
I'm not thinking the big I am  
I'm not down on the ground looking for a cure  
I'm not saying I'm the man...  
I'm trying to hide my scars  
I'm talking to you like a shadow in the dark  
I'm just trying to survive...  
And I'm not asking you for emotion  
I'm not asking for the sky to mend  
And I'm not asking you for nostalgia  
I'm not asking for the world to end  
I'm not asking for your opinion  
I'm not asking for a miracle  
And I'm not asking you to remember me...  
\--Gary Numan, Scar_

The interstate exit descended down a hill, breaking from the cover of roadside trees down to a main road, which ran under the interstate in one direction. In the other direction, there was a strip of roadside services, starting with a McDonald's and a BP gas station directly off the exit, and leading up half a mile to the top of a hill, where a Wal-Mart sat squatly, dominating the landscape. Reluctantly, with a quick glance at the sky, Erik left the semi-cover of the trees alongside the road and bolted down the exit, forcing his exhausted body into a brief run, down onto the road below and across the street to the gas station. He limped toward a stand of pay phones between the McDonald's and the gas station, and fell against the closest one as if trying to melt into it, and thus disappear from under the pitiless open sky.

The heat was getting to him-- it was midsummer, and without his powers to block the sun, the past hour and a half or so of trudging and then jogging along the side of the road had sapped him terribly. The fact that he had no water, hadn't had anything to drink since he left the stream and he'd been in the sun near-constantly since, didn't help. The smell of the food from the McDonald's was making him lightheaded with hunger-- this body couldn't endure hunger as well as his own, he thought. Blood sugar fluctuations, perhaps. Small women tended to be more subject to that than tall men. But he didn't relish trying to beg one of the truckers or tourists who came in and out of the McDonald's for money to buy food and drink, not when there were telephones right there. He was only a phone call away from his money, and once he had that, he could eat all he liked.

There was a more important call to make first, of course.

He glanced nervously up at the sky as he punched in his calling card number and then the phone number he was trying to reach, attempting to conceal himself under the pay phone stand's top as much as possible. It couldn't be done; it was a stand, not a real phone booth, and there wasn't enough room to hide his head under its top. The phone rang twice. On the second ring, a woman's voice answered pleasantly. He recognized the voice as Jean Grey's. "Xavier School for Gifted Youngsters."

"I need to speak to Charles Xavier, please."

"May I ask who's calling?"

_No, you may not_. "It would take too long to explain and we don't have time. It's a matter of life or death."

There was a click as Jean transferred the call-- to her credit, she didn't argue over his identity-- and Xavier picked up immediately, probably having been telepathically alerted by Jean. "This is Charles Xavier speaking."

"Put the recorder on, Charles, I've little time and I don't want to repeat myself. There is a rapist-serial killer loose in Pennsylvania someplace, inhabiting the body of Magneto. I believe the Daily Bugle have taken to rather sensationally calling her the 'Electrokiller'--"

"How do you know this? Magneto's alive? What's happened to him?"

"Irrelevant, except that the serial killer in his body isn't him. She's a woman, one who believes that all men should be tortured for having more power than women. To this end she's taken up raping and murdering young homosexuals and young men of power. She's likely to prefer mutant victims if she can get them. You must take all precautions to ensure none of your X-Men fall into her hands, but it's vital that you stop her before she kills again."

"Who _is_ this? Magnus, is that _you?_"

Damn the man. "Her real name is Lisa Davies; she uses the pseudonym Lee Davies, perhaps others, and lives in Clearfield, in western Pennsylvania. Her address is a rural route, it won't help you, but the place is no more than five or ten miles from exit 19 on I-80."

"Magnus, talk to me. I'll get the X-Men out to help you. If she's after you, we can protect you. I think I've already got a fix on her with Cerebro, unless that's you, but you have to give me more information. How did this happen?"

"Your ability to jump to conclusions on next to no information has never ceased to astonish me, Charles."

"So it _is_ you! You are alive! Thank God. I--"

"Why 'thank God?' If you'd wanted me alive so badly perhaps you shouldn't have had Wolverine all but murder me." No. He was sidetracking, getting into the old feud, and he didn't have time for that. "What are you picking up via Cerebro, exactly?"

"I've been getting a blip that looks like you, only with limited telepathic powers of some sort, appearing and reappearing randomly across the Northeast."

"And you did _nothing?_"

"I take it that that's her?"

"She's been _murdering_ people--" _tortured me, humiliated me, all but broke me-- _"and you've been sitting on your hands? _Why?_"

"I thought it was you."

"With telepathic powers? And when have you hesitated to attack me?"

"Since you supposedly reformed, and most especially after what happened when I sent my X-Men to talk to you last. As for the telepathy... I hoped it was you, Magnus, but given that I saw Asteroid M explode, I thought it reasonably possible that it wasn't. Polaris isn't quite that similar to you, but I've seen such similar signatures in different people before, particularly related ones. If it _was_ you I wasn't going to push myself on you when you weren't doing anything, and if it wasn't... I haven't had time to approach new mutants in a while."

"When I wasn't _doing_ anything?" His voice cracked shrilly, sending a wave of humiliation and fury through him, that Charles should hear him like this. "Charles, she was raping and murdering innocent young men, and you think she wasn't _doing_ anything?"

"And how was I supposed to know that someone with your body was raping and murdering people? It's not exactly the sort of crime I'd have accused _you_ of. Actually I just heard about it yesterday, since they're beginning to speculate on mutant involvement since that poor stockbroker was killed."

"Well, now you know. So stop her."

"Magnus, _wait!_ Don't hang--"

Erik hung up. If Xavier could track her with Cerebro, he'd hunt her down-- but he was far too much a bleeding heart to kill her, particularly now that he knew she'd stolen the body from Magneto. That would neutralize her, would give Erik time to build a device to force her to switch. Getting her free of Charles to force the switch might be difficult, but then, Charles and his X-Men didn't know what Erik looked like right now... oh, but that assumed that both the body snatcher and Erik himself retained Magneto's natural mental shields. If Charles could read either of them, he'd know exactly who Erik was. Well, it couldn't be helped. He'd figure out a way to handle it-- later. Right now he had another call to make.

A pleasant young woman picked up the phone on the first ring. "Schonfeld, Stein and Hersch, how may I direct your call?"

"I need to speak to Aaron Schonfeld, please."

"And who shall I say is calling?"

"It's Erik."

"Please hold."

He leaned against the side of the phone stand. What had ever happened to phone booths, the kind you could enter and close the door and sit down? The heat was terrible, and when a breeze did come along and cool him off a bit, it also kicked up dust from the bare ground under his feet, blowing it into his eyes. He supposed that that was better than concrete or blacktop to stand on in bare, injured feet, but why was there no grass planted here? Did Americans deliberately go out of their way to make everything as ugly as possible? Anxiety started to build again as he was left on hold, and he moved back to hide under the phone stand as much as he could. This area was too open; too easy for someone flying to spot him, no cover, nowhere to hide or get away.

And then Aaron's voice, age doing little to rob it of its robustness. "Erik? Is that you?"

"Never mind the way my voice sounds, Aaron, yes. It's me."

"Good _God_, what's happened to you? Your voice-- no, don't tell me, I _don't_ want to know. Are you-- are you all right?"

"It's a temporary thing, and a long story. I'll tell you what I can. Have you got the passwords?"

"Yes, yes I do. Go ahead."

"The current password is bushah. Last password is choshech."

Aaron sighed. "So it's you, all right. My God, Erik, you sound terrible."

He did, actually, even for the borrowed body. His voice was hoarse from the dryness in his throat and the exertions he'd gone through this day. "Did you send out that two million dollar check?"

"Yes, I did, as soon as I got your fax. We overnighted it to you. Didn't you get it?"

"Put a stop on it."

"You _didn't_ get it? We had insurance on that overnight package! _And_ they called us to let us know it was signed for!"

No. No, wait. "Was your address on the overnight package?"

"Yes, of course it was, but Erik, someone signed for it. It didn't simply get lost."

So he couldn't put a stop on the check-- she had Aaron's address. She could threaten him if the check was stopped. "I've changed my mind. Don't put a stop on the check. But I want you to trace it. Find out what bank it clears through as soon as it does. I also want you to track my credit cards-- the MasterCard and the Visa in the name of Edmund Stern, and the Visa in the name of John Wassermann."

"Erik, can I ask what's going on, or is this one of those things I don't want to know?"

He closed his eyes against the glare of the sun and the sweat dripping down past the barrier of his inadequate eyebrows. "Some of it you should know. I've... there's really no other way to say this. My body's been stolen. Currently I look like a woman, while the woman who _should_ be in this body is running around in my body. She also took my credit cards and all the cash I had on me, and she forced me to send you that fax."

"She took your body."

"Yes, that's what I just said."

"Is this... um. Is this one of those things that happens all the time to people in your situation, or...? You sound very... well, calm about it. I mean, if I had just been turned into a woman I don't think I would be so calm!"

"I'm going to get my body back, Aaron, don't worry about me. As for being calm, well, you know me. Nothing shocks me anymore. I've certainly been through worse."

"Oh, I know, I know. I was there too, after all. It's just... well. Let's take care of business. Are you sure you don't want me to stop the check? If this, this body thief has it--"

"It's too dangerous. I'm positive. Besides, it's only two million, and once I have my body back I'll recover it from her."

"It's actually 2.7 million. Some of your investments paid off."

"It doesn't matter. Can you put a trace on this call?"

"Can you just give me the phone number you're calling from?"

"The weather's faded it. Looks like are code 814, 765-1243. I need to know the nearest Western Union, or anyplace else you can wire me money."

"I'll have that for you in a minute. What kind of ID do you have on you?"

"Aaron, she _took_ my ID."

"Yes, but wasn't she carrying any ID for her own body on her?"

Of course. Aaron didn't know he'd been a captive for a month; as far as he could know, the body snatcher had taken his form and forced him to send that fax three days ago, and then let him run loose. "I don't have any of her ID. She took it."

"Well, that's a problem. Most places you wire money to, they want ID. But I think we can use a password instead. Let's not do Hebrew this time, they won't be able to spell it."

"'Pride goes before a fall.'"

"A little strange for a motto for you, but fine, that'll make a good password. I'll need to give them a physical description, too. What do you look like now?"

He moved back to look at himself in the reflective surface of the phone. Not that he didn't know far too well what he would see by now. "This body looks about 26 to 28, somewhere in there, and about five foot four. Weighs about 145-150 pounds or so. Light brown hair, slightly below the shoulders. Brown eyes. Fair skin. Smallish frame. Do you need anything else?"

"No, that should do it. How about a name?"

Damn. He could come up with a new, different male pseudonym at a moment's notice, but he wasn't used to having to create female ones. "Uh... Michele Roth."

"All right. I have an address for you. The closest Western Union is in the Wal-Mart at 100 Supercenter Drive in--"

"Aaron, I'm at the bottom of a hill. At the top of the hill there's a Wal-Mart. Is that the one?"

"What's the name of the road you're on?"

"I don't know; it's right after exit 19 on interstate 80."

"Let me put you on hold and check."

"Go ahead."

A minute later Aaron was back. "Yes, it's the one. How much do you need?"

"Give me two thousand; that should be enough for me to get to New York and pick up spare credit cards."

"It's done. Do you need anything else? You want me to get the credit card agencies to send a rep out to you, give you the cards directly? Anything I can do, I'd be happy to help."

"No, I don't want to stay here that long. You've been a tremendous help, Aaron. I'll call if there's anything else I need. Leave messages on the usual voicemail if you successfully track her through the money. I don't think she'd be fool enough to use the credit cards now, but..."

"Of course, I understand. And tell me how it turns out!"

This was probably one of the very few times in his career when he really _could_ tell Aaron how it turned out-- at least, in the sense of letting him know when he had his body back. He saw no need to ever burden Aaron with the knowledge of how the body snatcher would die, once he got his body back.

As soon as he was off the phone, he limped over to the gas station, heading for the bathroom. He'd have preferred the bathrooms in the restaurant, but since he had no shoes and looked wild and disheveled, he doubted they'd let him in the door. The bathrooms at the gas station were outside, although under an overhang that provided shade and a small sense of greater security, and he didn't have to interact much with people to reach them. Automatically he turned toward the men's room, stopping himself short just before he went in. Damn, he was never going to get used to this. He headed toward the women's room instead, tried the door, and found it locked.

The hell with it. The men's room door wasn't locked, so he went there instead. It was dark inside, even when he turned on the tiny dim light, and it smelled awful. The floor would have been repulsive enough to walk on with boots on; in bare, bleeding feet, he considered it an active health hazard, and snagged some paper towels to step on and shuffle around in. The toilet was clogged, and there was an overpowering scent of excrement. There were also no rolls of toilet paper. Annoyed, he grabbed more paper towels before hiking up the skirt and sitting down to relieve himself. This was not going to be pleasant.

It was worse than he thought, actually. He hissed when he saw the fresh bright stains on the underwear, glistening wet and red in the dim light. Too much to hope for that this could be the body's desperately awaited menstrual cycle, at last; it could be, but that wasn't the way his life worked. Far more likely, from the pains he felt, that his wild flight had torn open half-healing vaginal injuries. A women's bathroom might have had supplies-- he had no idea if in fact women's bathrooms carried such things, but it made sense that they would-- but a men's bathroom certainly didn't. He folded a paper towel and inserted it into the crotch of the underpants, wincing at the roughness of the paper against the sore flesh. That wouldn't prevent the blood loss, but hopefully it would keep the skirt from staining until he could finally replace the damned thing. There wasn't much he could do about the bleeding except hope it went away on its own until such time as he could rent a hotel room and lie down for a while. Preferably in New York City if he could, far, far away from here. If the blood flow didn't slow or stop, however, he was probably going to have to hole up here in Clearfield for a day or two until he recovered.

He washed as best as he could, wetting his hands and running his fingers through the tangled hair, trying to comb the leaves and twigs out of it and reshape it into something resembling a civilized person's hair. It wasn't as thick as his own body's hair, so it took to the reshaping rather better than his own would have. The bloody score marks across legs and face from branches and bracken couldn't be bandaged or healed, but he could wash them with soap and hot water-- amazing that there was actually soap in the soap dispenser, a piece of good luck he hadn't expected-- and clean off the blood, so the marks were less visible. When he finally was done and ready to leave, he looked superficially normal-- when he kept his arms at his sides, the tears in his blouse disappeared, and the clothing, though overwashed and permanently stained in places, was clean enough. The real problem was his swollen, bloody bare feet, but hopefully no one would look down.

For a moment he hesitated, his hand on the doorknob. It smelled horrible in here and it was cramped and if an actual man came along and found him here, the best he could hope for was humiliation; he didn't want to think about what the worst would entail. And yet he didn't want to leave. The sun beating down had sapped him, but it wasn't the sun he feared; it was the open sky, and what-- or who-- might be lurking in it, ready to swoop down on him and carry him back to his prison. But this was ridiculous; he couldn't hide out in a bathroom. Particularly not a men's room. All he had to do was get to the top of the hill, to the safety of the Wal-Mart, and disappear into the crowds within. And then he'd get his money, and food, and shoes, and he'd be safe.

He opened the bathroom door and stepped out.

* * *

Ten minutes later he'd trudged to the top of the hill, observing that distances always looked much, much shorter when you were looking down on them from the top of the exit ramp than when you actually had to walk the distance yourself. He'd alternated between running, jogging, and slogging exhaustedly the whole way up, unable to bear being in the openness, and too tired to move as fast as his screaming nerves told him to. Getting inside the building was a tremendous relief. He half expected someone to try to stop him from entering the Wal-Mart with his bare feet, like the security guard/greeter immediately inside. No one paid any attention. The tile was cool on his feet and pleasant after so long walking on dust or overheated blacktop, and he was finally able to slow to a walk and stay that way, now that he was no longer visible from the sky. He found a water fountain directly inside, and drank deeply, only stopping because a small child behind him whined about wanting a drink.

There were far too many people about, pushing, ambling along with their carts, parking hugely fat bodies in the middle of the aisle and blocking his path. He had never been in a Wal-Mart before, and would rather be elsewhere now if he had a choice. Any time a store employee looked at him, he had to control the impulse to jump, afraid they'd see his feet and throw him out. There was no way the body snatcher could find him in this crowd, but the presence of a crowd aroused far older anxieties. He couldn't throw up a force field to protect himself from these people, to keep them out of his personal space. With effort, he wove his way through the crowd, picking out quick getaway routes and pathways involving minimal people contact, circling around some distance out of his way rather than be trapped with other people in a narrow aisle. It was five minutes before he reached the Western Union.

"Excuse me. I believe that someone has wired me money here, and I need to pick it up?"

"Name?"

What had he said his name was? Think, think... "Michele Roth."

The woman gave him an odd look, as if she was puzzled by him, or perhaps didn't believe him. "Can I see some ID?"

He sighed. "I don't have ID. I was robbed. There's a password that should have been sent with the money, and a physical description."

"We wouldn't have a physical description. I can't do anything for you if you don't have ID."

"Look, there's a _password_. I worked this out with my accountant ahead of time. I don't have any ID because I was robbed. They took my credit cards, they took my money. I just want to get my money so I can get something to eat."

She looked at him hard. "I'm going to have to call my supervisor."

"Please do."

He sat down in one of a row of hard plastic chairs on the wall to the side of the Western Union. Dear God but he was tired. And hungry. He'd drunk a good deal at the water fountain, and the cool air-conditioning of the Wal-Mart was a balm to his sweat-soaked body, but all the added comfort seemed to really have given him was a sharpened appreciation for just how tired and hungry he was. There was some kind of awful snack bar in the Wal-Mart. Visions of hot dogs danced before his eyes. Slather enough mustard and relish on it and he wouldn't be able to tell that it was made of no-name meat. And then get a cab, and get a hotel room, and sleep. Maybe a hot bath, and then sleep. No, a hot bath would worsen the bleeding. Just sleep.

Erik waited for what seemed like a minor eternity, while other people came up and wired money, while assorted people passed him, and while a small boy repeated to his mother insistently that "that lady has no shoes on!" After that he folded his legs under himself, which was extremely painful but didn't leave him as exposed to the potential of store security coming along and throwing him out for having no shoes on. When was this mythical supervisor going to come talk to him anyway? The longer this took, the more his nervousness mounted; until he had his money, he was trapped here, with no safe place to go and no way to go there should the body snatcher or anyone else come after him. No one was going to come after him. No one even knew who he was, except the body snatcher, and she'd never find him in here. He told himself that again and again. It didn't help.

He complained to the employee manning the Western Union booth. She repeated that her supervisor was on the way, and it shouldn't be too long. Bored out of his mind, and restless from the mounting anxiety, he got up, went to the cash registers to get a _US News and World Report_, and returned to his seat. It was hard to focus on the words when he so much wanted to be buying shoes and socks and food and getting the hell out of here, going someplace he could get some rest, someplace safe. His legs had started to itch fiercely, and a rash was starting to come up on them. Probably he'd stepped in some poison ivy or something. Dammit. His attempt to focus on the magazine to distract himself from the itching and boredom was so intense, he didn't even notice the people approaching him until one asked him, "Miss Davies?"

The name of his hated enemy jolted him back to awareness. His head jerked up, and he saw two uniformed policemen standing in front of him. Police, as a general rule, had _always_ made him nervous-- even before he'd been a wanted terrorist, he'd had too many bad experiences with police in his life. But he had nothing to be nervous about this time, did he? He wasn't breaking any laws, aside from possibly the sanitation code by not having any shoes.

But they'd called him by her name...

"Excuse me, I think you have a case of mistaken identity," he said, trying to sound calm. "My name is Michele Roth."

"You got ID to prove that, Miss 'Roth'?" the same cop asked, a nondescript young man with brown hair.

"No-- no, I'm afraid not," he said, knowing it was the wrong answer, but what else could he say? "I've been robbed. I had my accountant wire me money, with a password so I could prove that it was me."

"Where did you say you were robbed, Miss?"

For a second, he thought he _had_ said, and couldn't remember where he'd said, and almost panicked. Then he remembered he hadn't said anything of the sort. "Out on the highway."

"So, you brought your car here after you were robbed?"

"No, of course not. They took the car too."

"Uh-huh. So let me ask you, Miss Roth, how exactly did anyone manage to carjack you out on the middle of the highway? People get carjacked in parking lots, when they're stopped. They don't usually get carjacked when they're cruising along at 55 miles an hour."

He was not a very good liar, and his few talents there did not lie in the area of improvisation. Why _would_ someone be carjacked on the highway? How could a criminal lure them into stopping so they could be threatened? Then the obvious answer hit him. "Well, I pulled over to help them. It looked like their car had broken down."

"And you figured you'd help out."

"Yes, of course. I didn't know they were going to steal my car and my ID!"

"Tell me, Miss Roth, you an expert on cars? We normally don't see young ladies pulling over to help people with their cars."

"Well-- yes, as a matter of fact. I'm a qualified mechanic." And he was, so they could hardly trip him up on that.

"Uh-huh. So what's a mechanic doing having $2,000 in spare change she can just have her accountant wire her?"

The other cop, a short blond man, spoke before Erik could try to come up with an answer to that one. "You're dirty, Lisa. We've known you were dirty for months. We just haven't had anything we can nail you on until now. You can insist you're Michele Roth all you want, but it won't change the fact that your real name is Lisa Davies and you've just committed wire fraud."

"I have not! And I am not! My name is Michele Roth and that's my money! I don't even know who this Lisa Davies person is."

"That why you jumped when I said her name?" the first cop asked.

"I jumped because there was a policeman at my elbow saying something, and you startled me!"

"Tell it to the judge, Lisa," the second one said, producing a pair of handcuffs.

This was not happening. This simply was not happening. His voice grew more frantic. "Look, you can _call_ my accountant. He can confirm my identity. I don't have _time_ for this-- I've got an important business meeting I've got to make it to, and I have to get my money and get changed and _go_, and I haven't _done_ anything!"

"A mechanic's got an important business meeting?" the first cop asked.

Damn. "A business venture my husband and I are setting up. I don't want to be repairing cars for the rest of my life."

"Oh, so you're married? Where's your ring?"

"Well, they _took_ it, of course!"

"Yeah? Where's the tan line, then?"

"You just keep digging yourself deeper, Davies," the second cop said, forcing Erik's hands into the cuffs. "You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law. You have the right to talk to an attorney..."

The rest of the words blurred. Erik had been arrested before, of course, twice surrendering himself to the authorities as Magneto. But he'd been a VIP prisoner, to be handled with extreme and special care, and because it had been his decision it had been impossible to humiliate him. Even when Mystique had done things _designed_ to humiliate him, like insisting that he might be carrying weapons in his business suit and demanding that he be put through a strip search once they had him in the secure facility, it hadn't, much-- he understood her too well. She'd taken his identity, not in the sense she usually took people's identity but in the sense that she'd declared herself leader of the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants, the group he'd originally founded, and everyone compared her to him. And she'd just sold out. She was taking out frustration at being compared to him and self-loathing for being a sellout on him, and that merely made her pathetic. She couldn't humiliate him. The second time he'd surrendered, to Captain America, there hadn't even been that degree of minor indignity. And the times he'd been captured against his will, he'd been handled with kid gloves, like a live wire who could burn everyone if not treated cautiously. They had taken exaggerated precautions against the danger he presented, and even in the midst of his fear and rage at being taken captive, he had at least known they were taking him seriously.

This was different. Whatever they thought Lisa Davies was involved in-- and he doubted very much they had the faintest inkling of the truth-- they didn't consider her a serious threat. They treated him like a very, very small-time hood who'd just made a really stupid mistake, and he found that incredibly humiliating. He was _Magneto,_ dammit, he made entire nations tremble in fear, and they were treating him like he was no more threat than a teenage shoplifter... because, of course, at the moment he wasn't a threat at all.

* * *

An hour later he was in an interrogation room at the police station, seated across from a plainclothesman behind a desk. As interrogation chambers went, it wasn't terribly threatening; there was a window and they didn't even have the stereotypical bare light bulb, instead using a circular fluorescent tube for illumination. His hands and feet were free, but there was a uniformed officer standing behind him.

"Look, Lisa. I _want_ to help you." The plainclothes officer had apparently been assigned the role of Good Cop. He was youngish, in his mid-thirties and fit looking. "I can tell that you're in some kind of trouble, and I want to help you out here." _How remarkably observant of you,_ Erik thought, desperately fighting the urge to scratch the rash on his legs. Perhaps the bare, swollen feet and the torn blouse had finally given these apes a clue? "But I can't if you don't cooperate."

"I've told you eight times who I am, and I'm rather tired of you insisting that I'm lying." He hadn't been told one way or another, but he assumed the Western Union cashier must have recognized him as Lisa Davies, that that was why she'd been so surly and why she'd called the cops on him. Clearfield did not seem to be a very large place. He regretted, now, not having used Lisa Davies' name in the first place. But what if they'd called her home to verify his identity, or something? Well, no, that didn't seem too terribly likely, but... it had just seemed dangerous to use her name, too likely that it would get back to her. Who could have predicted he'd be _arrested_, and on a ridiculous charge like this?

The man sighed. "Lisa. We fingerprinted you on the way in. You remember that, right? Now, why do you think we wouldn't match the prints up to verify who you are?"

He hadn't, but he _had_ hoped the body snatcher had been clever enough not to be fingerprinted in the past. "All right, since you insist I suppose I must use that name. But why have you arrested me? You know as well as I do that 'wire fraud' is an absurd charge. If I dislike my name, why is it fraudulent to wire my own money to myself under a name I prefer?"

The policeman behind him loomed menacingly, hand on his shoulder. Erik was once again painfully reminded of how very small and delicate the body he now occupied was. "If you didn't have anything to hide, why'd you be using a false name and lying about it? You wanna tell me that, miss smarty pants?"

"Don't, Stevens," the plainclothesman said. It was Good Cop, Bad Cop all right. Did they get this script out of a bad movie? The police shows the New Mutants used to watch had less transparent playacting. "I think it's obvious Miss Davies is in some kind of trouble." He leaned forward, clearly trying to look sympathetic. "Boyfriend trouble, maybe? You afraid the guy at your place is going to beat you up worse if you tell us what's going on? Lisa, we can protect you, but only if you cooperate."

_No_, Erik thought, _you cannot._ It _was_ almost tempting. _"There's a powerful mutant who's been holding me prisoner..."_ But what could that accomplish? Erik himself had already called the X-Men; these people would call in the Avengers or the Fantastic Four or SHIELD, all people Erik very much did _not_ want knowing that someone who looked just like Magneto was holding helpless women prisoner. If Charles had a brain in his head, the X-Men were on their way, and they'd handle this with outlaw discretion, taking Davies down and giving him a shot at his body back without ever letting it get out into the superhero community that "Magneto" had somehow turned into a homosexual rapist and serial killer. He was willing to put up with a lot more annoyance from these clods before he let things go that far.

He hadn't demanded a lawyer when this farce first started, hoping he could simply argue his way to reason. As suspicious as wiring money to himself under a false name might be, he was quite sure it _wasn't_ really illegal, and if he'd just been able to talk them into calling Aaron and verifying his right to the money he'd thought they'd have to let him go. But they weren't really interested in the money. They seemed to have cooked up some scenario, based on Lisa Davies' habit of disappearing for days or weeks and being replaced by a man who drove her car and spent freely, and based on his current abused appearance, that Davies was involved in prostitution or drug smuggling or was a con artist or something, and that the big spender she was currently living with was some sort of criminal big dog. How big, they had no clue. At least the name "Magneto" hadn't come up in conversation yet, for which Erik was grateful. But the wire fraud had been nothing but an excuse to take him in for interrogation, and he wasn't interested in trying to feed their fantasies. "I wish to speak to my lawyer."

"That's fine," the plainclothesman said. "You can call your lawyer. But you won't mind if we pick up your boyfriend and ask him a few questions while you're talking to your lawyer, would you?"

All the blood drained from Erik's face. The man probably had no idea how effective a threat that was. Horrifying visions rose to his mind of the police going to the body snatcher's home, confronting her, telling her "We have your girlfriend..." and thus revealing to her exactly where he was. Nothing in this tiny town could stop her from coming in here, causing wholesale slaughter, and taking him back, and the X-Men might very well not arrive in time to stop her. "No," he said, his voice a hoarse whisper, angry and humiliated that he'd been forced into playing their game, but without any choices. "No, don't. Please."

The plainclothesman smiled, undoubtedly convinced that now he was getting somewhere. "Are you afraid of him, Lisa? He can't hurt you if you press charges against him. What's he into, drugs?" He did the sympathetic look again. "We can protect you from him, but you have to give us something to go on."

"He's not involved with anything."

"Then why are you so scared that he'll come after you if we pick him up for questioning?"

"You don't have anything to question him _on!_ I haven't done anything, and you have no evidence that anyone I'm associated with has done anything, either. So what right do you have to question anyone when there's been no crime?"

"You got money wired to yourself under a fake ID," the cop behind him growled. "You don't think there's anything suspicious about that?"

"Suspicious enough to warrant arresting me, keeping me without legal counsel, and arresting everyone associated with me? I think not!"

"You can have legal counsel. That's no problem," the plainclothesman said. "And we wouldn't be arresting your boyfriend. Just asking him a few questions. I think the situation warrants us asking him a few questions, don't you? Especially since you were found with no shoes and a ripped-up shirt and no ID. It looks like you were trying to run away from someone or something in a big hurry. You think that doesn't warrant us asking your boyfriend a few questions?"

"You have no idea what you'd be bringing down on yourself. For your own sake, for the sake of _everyone_ in this town, I beg of you. _Don't_ go there, don't ask him questions. And he is not my 'boyfriend'."

"Then who is he? And why shouldn't we question him? Lisa, I _want_ to help you here, but you've got to help me out some first. Right now, the way it sounds, the guy's abusing his girlfriend-- or sorry, you're not his girlfriend-- abusing the woman he lives with, and you're terrified of him. I mean, I can hear it in your voice. This guy scares you completely, Lisa. I can tell." Was it really that obvious, Erik wondered, or was it just a guess based on what the plainclothesman thought was going on? Not that it wasn't true. The body snatcher frightened him more than anyone had since Zaladane, or perhaps even the Shadow King. "If he's beating up on you, that's a crime. You have the right not to get beaten. You have the right not to have to run away from home in bare feet and have money wired under a false ID so he won't catch you." He leaned forward again. "Maybe you're trying to protect him because you're afraid of being prosecuted? Lisa, if you're in something over your head, we might be able to cut some kind of deal with you. You don't have to get nailed for his crimes, if he's involved in something big and you help us. But you've got to help us."

Erik didn't know whether to be grateful that the policeman was so far off the truth or offended that the man thought he would be silent out of fear of retribution. "You don't understand the smallest fraction of what's happening."

"Then tell me. Help me understand."

"If I tell you what I can, will you refrain from trying to go after him and question him?"

"That depends on what you tell us."

"But if I told you nothing, you'd go seek him out."

"You wouldn't be leaving us much choice, Lisa."

Erik took a deep breath. He did _not_ want to be doing this. Not with the X-Men hopefully on their way. But he couldn't take the risk that they'd go to question the body snatcher and thus let her know where he was. He couldn't endure falling back into her hands again, X-Men or no X-Men. So, no choice. "All right. This much I can tell you. He's an enormously powerful mutant, one who has killed before. I've already contacted one of the New York superhero teams-- I did that as soon as I got away from him-- and they're on their way. If you try to question him, you're signing your own death warrants, and mine as well-- he can't afford to leave witnesses who might tell the superheroes where he is. Right now he doesn't know where I am, but if the police come to question him, he'll guess I'm in custody, and nothing you have in this town can stand against him."

The plainclothesman had listened intently throughout the statement. When Erik finished, he shook his head sadly. "Lisa, do you _really_ expect me to believe that?"

"It's _true!_" He had feared they'd insist on calling in the Avengers or the FF, or-- god help him-- X-Factor, the governmentally sponsored team Pietro was on. It had never occurred to him that they wouldn't believe him at all. Fear boiled over, and he tried to stand up, only to have the ham hand of the policeman behind him push him back down into his seat. "I swear to you, the man you've been calling my 'boyfriend' is a mutant criminal. For the love of all you hold holy, I beg of you, don't make contact with him. Don't let him know where I am. I beg of you."

"I'm not disputing that you're scared of him, Lisa," the plainclothesman said. "But really, a mutant supercriminal here in Clearfield? Doesn't that strike you as just a _bit_ unlikely?"

"He was in Philadelphia when I met him."

"Uh-huh. Plenty of mutant supercriminals in Philly this time of year."

"It's _true!_" Why wouldn't they believe him? He'd always used the blindness of humans toward the superpowerful ones in their midst toward his advantage-- Lisa Davies had been the first person outside the superpowered lifestyle to recognize him as Magneto in civilian guise in years-- but they couldn't be _this_ dense, could they? To disbelieve that Magneto walked among you was one thing-- an effect he'd carefully cultivated with his costuming and his aura of power, to make people think he could not possibly have an ordinary life-- but to refuse to believe that there were superpowered people in Philadelphia was ridiculous. "I swear it!"

"Yeah, and you swore you were Michele Roth, too," the man holding him in the seat said.

"Lisa, why would you need to fake your name if you were merely the helpless victim of a mutant criminal?" the plainclothes man asked in a tone of long-suffering patience. "And why wouldn't you have told us right away?"

Erik took another deep breath. _Don't call them fools. Whatever you do, do not lose your temper and call them subnormal imbeciles, no matter how obvious they make it that they are._ "I falsified my name because I didn't want him to find me," he lied. "If I had money wired to Lisa Davies, he might have found out about it. And I didn't tell you because I didn't want you risking _your_ lives, or summoning extraneous superheroes when I've already called some."

The plainclothes man shook his head. "That's really thin, Lisa. You just aren't a very good liar, are you?"

The ironic thing was that the real Lisa Davies was a brilliant liar. But Erik was not, unfortunately, and especially not in an improvisational situation under pressure like this one. "I'm not lying," he said stubbornly, concentrating on the fact that the body snatcher really _was_ a powerful mutant criminal and so that part wasn't a lie at all. "Believe me or not, as you wish. But if you go there and try to question him, you'll kill us all. Do you truly wish to take that risk?"

At that point, the hair on his arms stood on end, harbinger of magnetic charge that he could sense even in this body, and the power flickered and went out. The room, lit now by only the tiny window, plunged into semi-darkness.

"What the--" a policeman started.

Erik knew what, too well. Wild, immediate terror surged, and drove him out of his seat. He ran for the door, aware of nothing but the need to get away. She was coming, she was here, had to be here with a power surge that strong, she'd take him again and he wouldn't let her have him, never again. Angry shouts echoed behind him. He skidded out into the corridor, running for the back of the police station, where hopefully there'd be a back door and safety, someplace to hide from her. Someone tackled him, bodyslamming him into the floor. He screamed, struggling madly. "Let me _go_, let me go, damn you, she'll kill you all to get to me, I _won't_ go back, I won't let her _have_ me, let me _go!_"

In his own body, even without powers, he would have had a chance. In this one, berserker or no, he didn't. Several of them took his limbs while the one who'd slammed into him held him pinned to the floor with superior weight. They forced his hands into cuffs behind his back, held him hand and foot as he struggled and kicked wildly, and put him back in the chair, where they locked his wrists and ankles to the legs and sides. By now it was useless to keep fighting, but he couldn't make himself stop. The touch of hard strangers' hands on his body, the uniforms, the cuffs, all overloaded him with a torrent of memories, the body snatcher's brutal games and the Nazis and the secret police who'd beaten him and beaten him as Anya burned and he couldn't save her, couldn't save her... He howled with rage and pulled against the cuffs with all the strength left in the small body, scraping his skin raw, but he didn't even notice the pain. "Let me _go!_ Damn you all, let me go, I'll kill you, won't let her have me, I _won't!_"

Distantly he was aware of the lights coming back on, though he could hardly see for his haze of terror and rage. Every time a large male shape moved in front of him, he was sure it was her, and pulled harder, as if he could free himself of the cuffs by simply breaking every bone in his hands and feet through his struggles. Concerned voices spoke rapidly, and someone was being hustled into the room, a slim blonde someone who knelt in front of him and spoke in a female voice. "Lisa, calm down. Calm down. No one's going to get you. It's all right. We aren't going to let anyone get you, all right?"

Female voices had always comforted him. Though the body snatcher was a woman, she spoke in his stolen voice, and though there had been enemies like Zaladane and Selene and bright terrible Phoenix, they'd been far, far outnumbered by the men who'd done him evil in his life, and the women who'd done him good. The voice, gentle but firm, penetrated through the berserker haze across his mind, sinking in. He stopped struggling, giving in to it, his whole body slumping with exhaustion as the adrenaline rush wore off. If the body snatcher was here in the building it was already too late, and if she wasn't, his best hope lay with his current captors. "i'm telling the truth..." he whispered hoarsely, head spinning, so exhausted he could hardly form the words. "get some superhero team... in here. avengers or someone... please, don't let her take me..."

The woman's eyebrows rose. "Her?"

The shock of his mistake and the fear of what it might do to his credibility jolted him, another pulse of fear giving him a bit more strength. He'd said "her" many times in the middle of his fit of terror; he could only desperately hope that if he corrected himself now, they'd let their preconceptions color their memories, and assume they'd misheard him. "Him. The man... living at my home."

"We won't let him get you," she assured him, which made him realize precisely what he was doing. He was so terrified of the notion of falling back into the body snatcher's power that he was actually pleading with ordinary humans, and police at that, to save him. The humiliation made his face flame, and he tried to draw himself upright in the chair, to sit straight and proud and draw his dignity back about himself, but quite aside from the physical exhaustion he felt, the cuffs were still holding him in a vulnerable position.

He gathered strength, wanting to do this without any chance of his voice breaking or the helplessness and fear he still felt showing through. "Could you remove these, please?" he asked, gesturing with his head at the cuffs.

The policewoman-- he assumed she was that, though she was in plainclothes too-- looked at him hard. "You just tried to make a break for it, Lisa, and then you had a hysterical fit while the officers were trying to restrain you. It took three of them to do it, and you almost broke Officer Detweiler's nose. I'm not sure I can trust you."

"I... It was a momentary lapse, I assure you. I thought-- the power going out-- I thought it meant _he_ was here. Why _did_ the power go out?"

"No one knows yet. Just one of those glitches. So you going to be all right now?"

"Yes. Yes, I believe so. I won't try to run again. Please, could you release me from these?"

"In the light of what you've been through, I'd like to do that, very much. But can you do something for me?"

He tensed, warily. "What?"

"I'm going to have to search you. It's procedure. Now, I'd like to be able to do it without having you restrained in any way. I think you've been hurt enough, don't you?"

"What do you need me to do?" he asked tiredly.

"I'm going to take off the restraints, and we're going to shut the door. It's just going to be you, me, and Officer Bierlein--" she gestured at another woman, with short dark hair, wearing a police uniform and standing by the door. "No men. I'm going to need you to take off your clothes so we can search you. All right?"

The exaggerated care the plainclothes woman was taking with him was starting to infuriate him, all the more so because, after his panic attack, it _was_ clearly justified from her point of view. In her eyes, he was a pathetic loser of a woman, some small-time criminal who'd gotten involved with an abusive man into bigger crime. It was better than being recognized as Magneto, but still it enraged him that they'd see him as someone so small and pitiful... and yet, when he opened his mouth to voice his outrage, to say something cutting that re-asserted his status as a powerful person who just happened to be having a bad day, he found he didn't have the strength. He was too drained to do anything more than nod and mumble, "Very well."

"Good." The plainclotheswoman released him from the restraints. He stood up slowly and shakily. "I'm sorry to have to do this, but it's procedure with a prisoner who's been violent or tried to escape."

He removed the blouse and bra as quickly as he could make fingers numbed by exhaustion work the buttons and snaps, wanting to get this over with. When he undid the skirt and dropped it, he drew an involuntary sharp breath of surprise as he saw his legs. The paper towel he'd put into the underpants to absorb the blood had apparently either shifted in the hours since he'd done it, or been overwhelmed; small amounts of blood dappled his inner thighs, and the underpants were wet with it. "I'm sorry. I seem to need some sort of menstrual pad as well," he said, his tone clinical and utterly devoid of the humiliation he felt, as if he could push it aside and not feel it if he didn't let it into his voice.

"We'll get you something. I think we can probably get you new clothes, too."

Erik wondered why the woman was trying so hard to be kind. Guilt? Was she afraid her comrades could be indicted for police brutality for their treatment of an abused woman?

The search was brisk and clinical, thankfully-- he was amazed at how badly he wanted to hit the woman touching him to make her stop. When they tried to do a cavity search-- procedure, again-- he screamed involuntarily with pain. "I think we should send you to the hospital to have that looked at," the policewoman said. "It looks like you're in a lot of pain. Are you having your period? Is this normal for you when you do?"

He had no idea. "I don't know, and I don't think so," he said weakly. "A hospital is a good idea."

She nodded. "Let's get you some new clothes. We can take these away."

They got him shapeless, well-worn and overwashed, baggy sweatclothes two sizes too large-- he felt like a small child playing dress-up-- and new underwear in a plastic package. No new bra, but he didn't really care; the shirt was loose enough that if he pulled it out a bit there was no cloth rubbing against his sore nipples or the abrasions and welts on his breasts at all, and that was blissful. They also got him a menstrual pad, some lotion for the rash on his legs, a can of Coke and a vending machine package of cheese and crackers. It wasn't very substantial food, but he'd specifically requested something filling and non-sugary, and it was probably the best the vending machine had to offer of that type. As he ate, the blonde plainclotheswoman sat down in front of him.

"I'm going to get the paperwork filled out to have you transferred to the hospital. But I do need to ask you a few questions, is that all right?"

Not this again. His gut clenched. "I said I wanted a lawyer."

"Not those kind of questions. It's obvious to me that you're the victim here, Lisa; I just want to ask you a few questions so I can get you properly taken care of, all right?"

If this was Good Cop, Bad Cop again, this good cop was putting up a much better performance. Intellectually he guessed it was likely an act on her part to get cooperation, but emotionally he was having a hard time not responding. She had given him food, and drink, and itching lotion, and new clothes that had none of Lisa Davies' taint on them, even if he did suspect the sweats had been worn by dozens of female victims before him. And she was female, perhaps the most important point in her favor. His instinctive fears of people had been honed and trained in a place where there were no women; the sexes had been segregated at Auschwitz, and although Magda had spoken of evil women guarding the women's camp, the only women Erik had ever encountered there had been fellow victims. Men were harsh words and boots kicking him; women were gentle soft voices and delicate hands stroking his hair. He _knew_ women could be as great a threat, but the visceral fear wasn't there. "Ask what you like. I'll answer what I can."

"Some of these questions may make you a little uncomfortable, but I hope you can answer them, because they'll help us to help you. Did he rape you, Lisa?"

Someone else using the word, someone else knowing his nightmare, his helplessness, and the rage welled up again. "What do you think? I told you I wasn't bleeding from menstruation; did you think I accidentally managed to cut myself there? I should think it would be blatantly obvious!"

"We just need to ask. I'm sorry. I saw you had a lot of bruises on your body. Did he beat you?"

He glared at her. "Shall we cut this short? Yes, I was raped. Yes, I was beaten, repeatedly. Yes, I was tortured, and fed dog food, and held prisoner in a basement, and forced to perform nearly every degrading sex act you can imagine, and had everything I own taken from me, and--" He cut himself off, breathing hard. He had _not_ meant to do that, hadn't meant to tell her half of that. What was wrong with him? Where was his distance? He'd been through worse than the body snatcher had inflicted. "Does that answer your questions? May I go now?"

"I'm sorry." She put her hand on his, gently, not pinning it. "It must have been awful for you. And then to be brought in for questioning like that... well, I'm going to have to talk to the guys who were questioning you before. It's just terrible that you've been treated like you have."

The words mollified him, loosening the knot of rage just a little. "I-- thank you. I haven't _done_ anything-- I was only trying to escape he-- uh, him, and they've treated me like some kind of small-town hoodlum."

"Well, that isn't going to happen anymore. We're all really on your side, Lisa. We want to see the man who did this to you pay for it."

_I can take care of that myself if you'd just let me go._ "So I am free to leave?"

"Well, you're hurt. I think we should take you up to the hospital, don't you? And we'll need to get some evidence to really nail this guy, especially if he's a mutant like you say. Obviously we can't risk going out there to pick him up until we get one of those superteams down here, but we'll need something for them to go on, don't you agree?"

He was so tired, and he hurt so much. The words washed over him, and he only caught about half of them, but he did note "hurt" and "hospital." He had desperately wanted to flee this place since the pulse of EM disruption had hit, yet he'd been here for at least half an hour since then, and she hadn't shown. Maybe she hadn't been on her way after all. Maybe that had been her fighting off the X-Men, and the fact that no pulses had occurred since meant that they'd taken her down. Medical attention would be very nice right now. And he'd caught the policewoman talking about mutants and superteams, too. So they believed him. They weren't going to send a team of powerless humans out to deal with the body snatcher; they'd call in the non-mutant superheroes, or perhaps X-Factor. At least they would be open to the concept of body snatching, and they knew him well enough to know he'd never be involved in crimes like this. Some of the sick fear eased. "Yes, all right."

"Officer Bierlein and I'll drive you up to the hospital, and I'll stay with you until the examination, all right? I'll make sure you get the care you need. If you want me present during the examination, I can stay then too. Is there anyone you'd like to call to come with us? Friends, family, anyone you might want for emotional support?"

"No." He frowned at the plainclotheswoman. Why _was_ she bending over backwards for him? "Who are you?"

"I'm sorry. I introduced myself while you were too upset to hear me, I guess. I'm Detective Karen Devoe. I'm the head of the sex crimes division."

"Oh. Why did they call you in? I wasn't brought in because I was raped; they arrested me. For no good reason."

"Yes, I know. I told you, we needed to search you after you became violent, and since we suspected sex crimes might have been involved, that's why they brought me in. Would you like me to call in a volunteer from the rape crisis center to help you instead?"

"_No._ I want this over with. Quickly."

"I can understand that. Let's go."

* * *

He immediately hated the hospital. He never liked hospitals much at the best of times; the antiseptics couldn't conceal the smell of sickness and death, and his associations with hospitals were unpleasant ones. But a large man got treated far less dismissively than a small woman; the last time he'd been in a human hospital, he'd been the bane of the nurses because he kept trying to push himself to get well and get out of there faster, but at least they'd shown him respect. Here, the moment Devoe told the emergency room nurse that he'd been raped, he could _see_ himself being redefined as a pathetic, useless victim in the woman's eyes, and one who was wasting her time at that. "We deal with real emergencies here," the nurse said loftily, when Devoe demanded that Erik be given immediate access to a doctor.

"Look, this woman's been traumatized. She doesn't need to spend four hours waiting around for a doctor. I want her at _least_ set up in a private area while she waits, so she can lie down while your doctors deal with their 'real emergencies.'"

The nurse allowed that she could do that, and so, rather to his annoyance, Erik was left with Devoe in an examination room that was currently not being used. He would have preferred to get rid of the policewoman entirely, and get some sleep. She seemed insistent on interviewing him, however.

"I'm sorry, but I do need to take a detailed statement about what occurred. I thought we could use the time while you're waiting for the doctor to do that, so you don't have to be concerned about anyone at the police station overhearing if you were worried about that."

"I wasn't, particularly."

"According to the statement you've already given, you were in Philadelphia when you encountered this mutant. Can you tell me what happened then?"

He was far too tired to lie convincingly. "I don't want to talk about it."

"All right. We don't have to talk about what he did when he captured you. But you say he held you prisoner in the basement of your own home for a month, is that correct?"

"Yes." He lay on the cot and considered the merits of closing his eyes, rolling over and ignoring Devoe completely. However, she was probably his gateway to immediate medical treatment. The bleeding wasn't life-threatening, but there was no way he wanted to try to go to one of his bases, and the high-tech medical equipment he kept there, before it had been stopped. The only base he had right now with the good stuff, the Shi'ar tech he'd gotten off the X-Men, was in Antarctica. The rest of the bases had the equivalent of emergency kits, things he could use to patch himself together until he could get to Antarctica, but he admitted to himself that he knew so little of proper gynecological medicine, he hadn't the faintest idea if any of his emergency kits would work for internal vaginal bleeding. Most involved applicators with flat surfaces, to be pressed against wounds; what he had for internal injuries were drugs to slow blood flow, which would hardly work if he was going to have to trek to Antarctica. His base was in a mountain range, inaccessible by any means but climbing and super-powered flight; no vehicle could negotiate the treacherous air currents and narrow spaces between outcroppings that a flying person could easily slip through. He needed, essentially, to be at peak health _before_ he chartered a flight there and tried to make his way into his base. Which meant using ordinary humans' medical tech.

"What sexual acts did he perform on you besides vaginal penetration? Was there oral or anal intercourse?"

He rolled over and stared at her. "Why the devil do you need to know that?"

"The physician is going to need to know, to properly examine you for injury. And we need the information in order to be able to charge the perpetrator."

_You won't need to charge the perpetrator. Leave her to me._"I already answered the question. What part of 'every disgusting sex act you can imagine' did you not understand?"

"I'm sorry. I know this is painful for you to deal with--"

"No! It isn't painful, it's _annoying._ It's annoying, and very, very tiring, and I am very tired. I want to _sleep_, Detective. I ran through the woods for four hours today trying to evade the madman who'd held me prisoner, and just as I was about to get my money, get something to eat and go rent a hotel room to sleep in, you people took me captive, interrogated me, and you haven't left me alone since. Interrogate me about my experiences after they examine me, if you must. But please, I am very tired..."

"Of course. We'll talk after your exam. There's just one thing I need to know, first, and I'm sorry. Have you taken a shower since the last time he raped you vaginally or anally?"

That question struck him as even more absurd than all the others, but he was really too tired to protest. If answering that one would buy him peace and quiet, so be it. The last time she'd raped him had been this morning, before bringing him upstairs to do the chores. He hadn't had a chance to shower since. "No. Not vaginally, anyway. The last time for... for the other, was five days ago, so yes."

"All right. That's actually a good thing. You go on and get some sleep now."

* * *

But of course he couldn't sleep, too tense and aware of his vulnerability, despite his exhaustion. So he was groggy, but thoroughly unrested, when they finally came for him. For some absolutely incomprehensible reason that no one explained and he was too tired to ask, a nurse made him give her a sample of his hair, which she sealed in an envelope, and then asked him to run a comb through his pubic hair and let any loose hairs fall into another envelope. She took several blood samples and a urine sample, and told him they'd have the results of the pregnancy test in a few hours, the venereal disease tests in a few days. Then the nurse left, leaving him in a different room, where he couldn't go back to sleep because there was an imminent expectation of a doctor. Some minutes later, a male technician arrived with a black bag.

"You're still the only forensic photog?" Devoe asked the man disbelievingly. "I thought they'd hired a woman for cases like this."

"They did. Then the budget cuts hit. The HMOs are killing us." The man opened his bag and removed photographic equipment. Erik had only been mildly irritated at the interruption until he saw that.

"Why do you have a camera in here?" he asked, his voice far shriller than he'd meant it to come out.

"We have to photograph the injuries," Devoe said in that infuriatingly calm tone of hers. "I'm sure the last thing you want right now is to have pictures taken of you, but we need them as evidence to make a clear case against your assailant. Once it gets to court, lawyers for the defense often try to say things like the sex was consensual, or there was no sex at all, or the injuries were inflicted because the attacker was trying to defend himself. We have to be able to counter those accusations with hard evidence. So we take pictures of the injuries. Don't worry, the photographs will never be seen outside the courtroom or the police station."

It wasn't him. It wasn't his body. He shouldn't care if photographs were taken of it, and he could think of no rational excuse for refusing-- "I don't want it" wasn't a rational excuse, and while "It'll never get to court because I'll take my body back and slaughter her" was quite rational, it was also not something he could exactly use here. Numbly, he undressed and let Devoe and the photographer take pictures of him from all angles. They took a set of eight of his full body-- two each of front, back, and both sides-- and then a number of close-ups of the specific injuries. This involved close-up pictures of genitals, buttocks and breasts, as well as more innocuous places like his back and neck. The photographer was professional, saying and doing nothing that indicated he had an opinion of Erik as a person one way or another, but the entire process was more humiliating than anything else he'd faced today. He felt like a whore, or a pornographic model. He wanted to kill the photographer. And Devoe. And everyone in this miserable hospital.

He was allowed to put his hospital gown back on afterward; he suspected it was pointless to do so, since the doctor would probably make him take it off again, but it made him feel a little bit better. Devoe started to explain to him again why it had been necessary to do that; he gave her one of his _looks_, and apparently she correctly interpreted it even through the lens of the wrong body, as she promptly apologized and shut up. It was nice to know he hadn't entirely lost that ability, at least.

When the doctor arrived-- a somewhat overweight blonde woman with her hair pulled back severely-- she asked him if he wanted Devoe with him for the examination, and when he said no, kicked her out to wait outside. That was a small pleasantness. The doctor examined his entire body again, taking note of the numerous welts, bruises, cuts and small burns on him. He thought of telling her to refer to the photographs that had just been taken and so avoid duplicating effort, but he was very much afraid his voice would come out in a shrill whine again. She then made him lie down on a table, put his legs in stirrups, and expose himself completely to her. Panic nearly overwhelmed him again; the body snatcher had bound him in such a position more than once, and used the greater access to his genitals the position gave her to cause him extraordinary pain. He found himself freezing twice while getting onto the table, his muscles refusing to put him in such a vulnerable place, and only by gritting his teeth and forcing himself to go on could he actually arrive at the position the doctor wanted.

Erik stared at the ceiling, the clinical white tile a more soothing place to put his eyes than the ceiling of his cell, the wooden supports and the floorboards of upstairs that he'd spent hours staring at in the body snatcher's cellar while she'd grunted over this body. _It's not me. It's not my body they're looking at. This slab of meat she victimized has nothing to do with me. And I've been through far worse than this._ If he kept repeating the words to himself, he wouldn't leap out of the stirrups and try to kill the doctor. He hoped.

"Take a deep breath and relax," the physician instructed. She was brusque and rather cold, unlike Devoe's excessive solicitousness. He found he didn't like the brusqueness nearly as much as he'd thought he would after putting up with Devoe.

_How can I relax in this position?_ he wanted to ask, but didn't. Apparently this was normal for women. Apparently they did this kind of thing all the time-- the physician had asked, when he'd been so clumsy getting into the stirrups, if it had been so long since his last gynecological checkup that he'd forgotten what it was like, in a tone as if she was trying to joke with him. What he'd gotten from the statement had been an understanding that this was normal procedure for a gynecological exam. Which meant he didn't dare ask what they were doing or why; a real woman would know.

Something smooth and metallic was pressed against the opening to his body. He did break, then, trying to kick free of the stirrups and the whatever it was with a sharp cry of fear. The doctor gave him a look he interpreted as absolute disgust. "It's just a speculum," she said. "You've had these exams before. You know what it's like. Now, you want me to take a look and see how badly you're hurt, don't you?"

He would _not_ give in to irrational terror. He would not. This was normal for women. Nothing to be afraid of. "I'm sorry," he said harshly, trying to hide his shame and fear. "Go ahead."

The thing, whatever it was, hurt only a small amount at first, as anything at all touching him there hurt. Then the pain increased dramatically, and there was some sort of clicking noise and she was doing something to the device, but he couldn't follow it, couldn't see it with his body in the way and couldn't track the metal in it with the magnetic senses he no longer had. It felt like she was stretching him, making the vaginal canal wider, and it hurt horribly. He gritted his teeth and tried very hard not to scream, though an occasional groan escaped him and he couldn't seem to help that. This could not be normal. No woman would ever get a gynecological exam if it hurt this much. The pain must be due to the damage the body snatcher had done him.

"There seems to be some old scar tissue," the doctor said, sounding obscenely calm, as if she didn't even notice the agony she was inflicting on him. "Were you ever raped before this incident?"

He remembered the body snatcher telling him how one of her victims had bled "gouts of blood." "Yes," he managed, breathing hard, his voice strained from the effort of resisting the pain. "I was hurt very badly and I had to get medical treatment."

"That explains it," she said, undoing and withdrawing the speculum. He relaxed slightly with the relief of the pain. "Relax, the really bad part's over. Now I'm going to do something a bit different. Or if you got medical treatment for rape before, you might remember this."

"I don't remember any of it. Please, tell me what you're doing?"

"I'm just going to squirt a little bit of warm saline solution into you. It won't hurt. Then I'll aspirate it back out again with a needleless syringe. None of it should hurt at all."

"Why are you doing it?"

"To try to get a sperm sample from the alleged rapist. Since you didn't shower since the last time, the chances are good we'll be able to get a sample, and that will help when it's time to prosecute. They can do a DNA matchup between the sample and the suspect and see if he's the one that did it."

The words, and their implications, finally penetrated his fogged brain. He pulled out of the stirrups again and sat up. "No!"

The doctor looked at him as if he were terminally stupid. "It's evidence, Lisa. How do you expect them to prosecute anyone for raping you if you won't let me take the evidence?"

Given that he was a mutant, he was quite sure that his specific DNA fingerprint would be extremely distinctive, distinctive enough that, with the clue he himself had given that his assailant was a powerful mutant, it might very well positively identify his original body as the attacker's. Horrific visions of newspapers headlined "MAGNETO FOUND TO BE RAPIST" surfaced in his mind's eye. "I know who he was. I don't need samples taken."

"You might know who he is, but in court there'll need to be more evidence than your word for it. You don't want him going free, do you?"

"I don't care! All I wanted was medical treatment! I don't want to be interviewed, I don't want evidence taken from my body, I don't care if they prosecute or not!"

"Oh, all right. You have the right to refuse that evidence be taken if you want, but you're shooting yourself in the foot. It's not going to hurt at all to take the sperm sample. The speculum hurts, I know it does. You're tense and you're injured and most of the women I see in my practice don't like it much when they're healthy and relaxed. But you were brave and you stuck that one out. Why are you so scared of this? It won't hurt you."

"Hurt me? No. It will hurt my _people_. Do you think I want to see a high-profile trial of a mutant rapist? Don't you see what damage that would do us?"

"Do who?"

Belatedly Erik realized that at no point in his cover story had he admitted to being a mutant himself. Well, to hell with it. "Mutantkind."

"You mean like the man who allegedly did this to you? Why would you want to protect people like him?"

"How dense _are_ you, woman? I am a mutant myself! The public perception is that we're all criminal monsters who use our gifts to destroy the lives of ordinary people. I haven't been able to use any of my own powers since he attacked me, so in the eyes of the newspapers and the courts and the public perception, _I_ will seem like an ordinary person, a helpless victim set upon by a slavering genetic freak, and it'll just add fuel to the fires of hatred toward my people. I never wanted to tell the police that the rapist even _was_ a mutant, but I had to warn them so they'd let the professionals deal with it instead of going and getting killed themselves. But I am _not_ going to allow what happened to me to be used to destroy my people, and if that means the rapist never goes near the courts... well, my people take care of their own. He won't go free."

"You're a mutant."

"I believe I said so. Several times."

"Why didn't they warn me before bringing you in?" the physician demanded, in an aggrieved voice. "I'm not a mutant specialist. You need trained personnel for that!"

"Obviously no, you don't. If I were the sort of mutant who uncontrollably bursts into flames or absorbs the minds of any who touch me, I would have notified the police before they brought me here, yes. However, did you miss the part where I said I don't have my powers? Even if I _could_ do those things, I can't right now. My attacker took my powers from me. It will be days, most likely, before I get them back."

"What _can_ you do? When you have your powers?"

The outburst had left him exhausted again. "What does it matter?" he asked tiredly, looking at the floor. "It didn't save me from being captured, did it?" He looked up. "Is the medical portion of the exam done? May I go?"

"No, we're not done. Since you've refused the collection of evidence, I'll note on your record, you've refused. I still have to perform a few tests for the sake of your health, nothing to do with evidence. It's just the standard stuff you get in a gynecological exam."

"Then do so."

She did. They involved putting latex-gloved fingers, slick with some sort of lubricating jelly, into him, probing first the vagina and then the anus. It hurt badly, though not as badly as the speculum had. When she was done, she let him put the underwear with the menstrual pad in it back on, though he was still expected to wear a hospital gown in lieu of the baggy sweats Devoe had gotten him. "You've got some internal lacerations. Nothing life-threatening, but you'll need stitches, and you've already eaten today so we can't do the surgery until tomorrow. I'm going to recommend that you spend the night in the hospital, with pain medication and a salve suppository to promote blood clotting, and tomorrow we can put you under anesthesia and get you stitched up. All right?"

The idea of entrusting himself to humans for surgery, particularly in such a delicate region, disturbed him terribly... but he'd already determined that he needed to do so before he could get to his main base. And the humans had done all right when he'd been in his own body and fallen into the Atlantic Ocean from space, and he'd needed to spend two weeks in traction without the use of his powers. "Very well."

* * *

A nurse put salves and bandages on him, and offered him the pain medication the doctor had authorized. His first temptation was to refuse, since any such drugs would likely impair his functioning and if the body snatcher showed up he couldn't afford to be drugged and helpless before her. So he told the nurse he was uninterested in anything that would make him drowsy or dizzy or otherwise impair him. She nodded and and said that the doctor had included the option of analgesic medication instead, painkillers that would work by lowering inflammation and blocking pain signals from the nerves rather than acting on his brain. Try as he might he couldn't come up with any reason to object to that. Besides, the fact that there had been no pulses after the one encouraged him greatly. Chances were, the X-Men had already gotten her. They weren't incompetent, after all. And he really did hurt an absurd amount. So he accepted the analgesic and the offer of a hospital bed for the night.

Of course, when she told him it wouldn't make him fall asleep she probably hadn't taken into account how exhausted he was. It didn't matter that it was an analgesic rather than an anesthetic; the pain was one of the main things keeping him awake and alert at this point, and when that eased he started to crash. This got rid of Devoe for him, at last. She had been waiting for him outside the hospital room; he was sure that she wasn't normally so careful with rape cases, and that in this case it was more her desire to see him testify about whatever high-stakes crime they thought Lisa Davies' assailant had been involved in that kept her glued to him. But when he stopped being able to fight the encroach of sleep, shortly after they'd given him the meds, he told her so, and, as sincerely as he could, told her that he'd come back to the police station in the morning after his surgery, trying hard to believe it for the minute or two it took to say it so she would be fooled. She told him she'd check up on him in the morning after the surgery, and then, blissfully, left him alone.

The nurse fed him hospital food, which was no worse than institutional food ever was, and then let him alone as well. He slept, but not deeply. Even if they had kept him in the private room, so he would not be awakened by nurses passing by his curtained cot to attend to his roommates frequently, the nightmares would still have tormented him. Time after time as he started to drift off, the dream that seized his mind was one where the body snatcher came into the hospital after him and recaptured him, and he'd jerk awake in terror before ever having been truly asleep in the first place. And even when he managed to achieve deeper sleep, there were still terrible dreams.

* * *

The body snatcher had massacred the Morlocks, who were all boys and young men that one interested in such might find attractive, and they were piled all over the tunnels, and somewhere in here were the New Mutants, but he couldn't find them. Storm was supposed to help him look but she was doing something else. He tried to be respectful in picking up the bodies, but he was too small and weak and without a partner to help him lift them, they were too heavy, and Moishe had died yesterday so he didn't have a partner anymore. Every time he looked at one he felt a sense of dread that it might be a New Mutant. They never were but that didn't mean the New Mutants weren't dead. Roberto and Doug and Sam and Pietro were all potential targets of hers. He'd told them to stay at the base but they hadn't listened because they never listened and now maybe they were dead.

Psylocke knocked on the door where he was wading through the bodies. He looked up at her. "You changed your butterfly," he said.

"It's a butterfly knife." It was the real Psylocke, not the Asian woman the X-Men had acquired with her name who he'd fought last time he met the X-Men. She was wearing the Asian's outfit, though, and holding a purple knife in her hand, that used to be a butterfly. "Magneto, can you tell me where you are?"

He looked around. "All these bodies and you need to ask?"

"You're asleep, aren't you?" she said. "This psychescape is disturbed even for you."

Was he asleep? The idea brought a profound sense of relief. If he was asleep then the body snatcher wasn't real and he really had his own body and all of it had been a bad dream. "Then I'd rather wake up."

"Go ahead. I'll be there directly."

He opened his eyes and lifted his head to look at his body. It was still a woman's. For a moment the disappointment was profound, until the dream had faded enough that he was able to adjust.

For several minutes he lay awake, looking up at the ceiling. When he glanced over at a clock he saw it was 7:30-- and he'd gotten up at what? 8, 9? It was too early to go to sleep for the night, pain relief or no. Perhaps he should use this time to construct a more coherent false story in case Devoe cornered him tomorrow after the surgery.

He spent long minutes doing that, until footsteps approaching his cot startled him. Erik rolled over to face whoever it was as they pulled the curtain aside. An Asian woman with hair to her waist looked down at him. Though she looked like a nurse, there was something wrong with the picture, and while he was trying to figure it out he felt a slight twinge against his mind-- what Charles called the "hello", a telepathic query as to identity. Instinctively he hardened his shields, and the Asian woman came into sudden focus. Her hair was dark purple, her clothing was scanty, and she no longer looked anything at all like a nurse. Though she also looked nothing at all like the woman in his dream, the "feel" of her mind helloing him made it clear that despite the changes in her body-- changes, after all, rather less profound than those he'd been through-- it was not just a woman calling herself Psylocke. It was, in fact, Elisabeth Braddock, his former ally and recent foe.

"Psylocke?" he asked, startled.

"He's here, Ororo," she said at the same time.

A moment later Storm, co-leader of the X-Men and one of the few he might still call friend after the debacle of last time, came over to the cot. "Magnus, is that truly you?"

"What are you doing here?" he asked the women harshly, sitting up on the bed. Were the rest of the X-Men going to turn up here in the medical ward? Take him captive, perhaps? He tensed, all too aware of his vulnerability. It felt as if he still had his mental shields-- he'd been able to block Psylocke's "I look like a nurse" projection and shut out her hello-- but she was a formidable martial artist who could beat him to a pulp with hands and feet if she chose, now that he had no powers. And Storm had been hard to defeat when he'd _had_ full power. If they decided to take him in, he'd have no chance to resist.

"Rescuing you, foolish man," Storm said, a teasing note to her voice. "What does it look like?"

"It looks as if you're wasting your time, failing to pursue the real enemy. What have you done about the body snatcher?"

"We can't find her," Storm said simply. "We need your aid, Magnus. And, since I can't imagine you truly _wish_ to be waiting in a public trauma ward for whatever treatment you need, it looks as if you may need ours as well. Can we not work together, then?"

He didn't want to be working with the X-Men. He wanted nothing to do with them. They'd hurt and betrayed him in ways he'd thought himself immune to, and the idea of seeing them again brought nothing but pain-- to say nothing of the humiliation of having them see him like this. But... they were here. With them on his side, the body snatcher would never be able to retake him. And they had advanced medical equipment, very likely even better than what he had at his base, since Charles seemed to have come home from the Shi'ar homeworld with a whole collection of new toys, judging from the hoverchair he'd acquired. Not that Erik wanted the X-Men performing medical procedures on him either-- considering that the nature of his injury would make it obvious how the injury was acquired, he'd almost prefer total strangers-- but he knew how to work their equipment to heal himself, and he doubted they'd been able to root out the back door password he'd put in their system to allow him to override functions such as the medical logging system. In light of all that, he would be a fool to refuse... especially since they probably _did_ need his aid in finding the body snatcher, if for some reason Cerebro wasn't working.

"If you can keep your teammates from trying to kill me, I see no reason why not." He stood up quickly, suppressing a wince of pain. "I need to get dressed." The battered, well-worn sweats weren't what he'd have chosen to face the X-Men in-- full body armor was more like it-- but they were better than this hospital gown.

"Of course. Meet us outside your room."

No one attempted to stop him from dressing, removing the plastic bracelet from his arm, and leaving. There was a bored-looking policeman sitting on a chair across from the ward-- he remembered Devoe saying something about making sure he had police protection, though he'd been too tired to pay attention-- but the policeman didn't appear to notice Erik joining the two women. Both of whom were in costume, and the policeman didn't appear to notice _that_, either. Sometimes telepaths made useful allies.

"What's the situation?"

"We haven't been able to locate her," Psylocke said. "Jean, Charles and I have all searched. Three hours ago, while we were still in transit, Charles apparently _did_ find her, with Cerebro. She did something to incapacitate him-- Hank isn't sure what, except that Charles is still unconscious-- demolished Cerebro, and then attacked the mansion with a pulse wave which destroyed all the conventional electronics and damaged some of the Shi'ar systems."

Erik frowned. "That isn't possible."

"Perhaps there is someone else who might have used an electromagnetic attack on the mansion?"

He scowled at the sarcasm. "Firstly, your electronics are shielded. I _could_ take them down, at close range, but it would be a non-trivial exercise. And three hours ago, she was _here_. The power failed in the police station."

"That was probably part of the same attack," Ororo said. "Our own electronics failed, in the Blackbird, although we were successfully able to make a landing."

"But I don't have that kind of..." He trailed off, a feral smile slowly spreading across his face. "Oh, but she doesn't know, does she?"

"What, Magnus?"

He looked up at Ororo, rather annoyed that he had to. _Both_ of them were taller than him. Even Psylocke's new Asian body was considerably taller than the one he was in now. "In theory, I have the range to assault a location as far from here as Salem Center is. In practice, my range is much more severely limited. Experience has taught me that if I try to generate a pulse wave across such distance, it will cause severe and incapacitating pain as soon as I release my hold on the fields... but she doesn't know that." The feral smile broadened into an evil grin. "She might well have performed the pulse wave, since the pain wouldn't have hit until after she stopped. And now she's crippled herself, Ororo. In the condition she must have left herself, _I_ can defeat her, let alone you. She's undoubtedly lying at home, in agony, simply waiting for us to come for her."

Oh yes. He could taste his vengeance now-- confront her, terrorize her into switching, and then. And then no one would stop him from making her pay. The X-Men could spout mealy-mouthed platitudes all they liked, but Lisa Davies was going to die in swift agony before the day was out, after suffering hours of excruciating migraine that she'd brought on herself through her stupidity. The pain would affect him too, of course, but he could muster up the willpower to deal with it for the moment or two it would take to wrap one of those steel cables around her head and crush. Let the X-Men be horrified; none of them had the power to stop him... well, perhaps Jean Grey, but if she stood in his way he'd just knock her out, and besides, he was certain he could kill Davies faster than any of them but Wolverine could react, and if Wolverine dared stand in his way, he'd learn how foolish it was to fight a man who could control his very bones. He'd pay, too, for the deaths of the Acolytes and the betrayal of trust, if he gave Magneto the slightest excuse. Then, with Davies dead, Erik could wipe away all the pain and fear and humiliation of the last month, as if it had never been.

"Do you know where she might be?"

He nodded, still smiling evilly. "Yes. The place she held me prisoner is actually her home. She's most likely there. I can show you the way."

By the time they got outside the hospital, though, he'd realized it wouldn't be so easy. He had no idea how to get to her house. His directional sense was gone-- he couldn't find his way back to a place he'd once been by following the magnetic fields anymore, and there was no way he could retrace his steps through the woods.

They met with several other X-Men outside, in the hospital parking lot. It actually looked like the entire team, minus Colossus, the Beast, and Xavier himself, and plus a new recruit. "Found him," Psylocke said. Her tone of voice made it clear that they'd been looking for a while.

Erik tried very hard not to notice the double takes, the amused grins Gambit and Iceman were sporting, Rogue's look of startled shock. The new recruit, a large black man carrying a gun and with an "M" tattoo on his face, was scrutinizing Erik as if expecting him to suddenly burst out of this female shell and start throwing power around again. Angel-- or no, wasn't he Archangel these days?-- was studying him with an ice-cold, remote expression that would have been at home on a Nazi commandant's face. Jean Grey was looking at him with pity. Pity. The woman hated him, yet she was pitying him. He'd almost rather a hate-filled coldness like Archangel's. And the look on Rogue's face, once the shock passed from it, almost broke his control.

"Sugar, you all right?" she asked, her voice full of pity for him and a desire to bundle him up and not let him fight his own battles, now that she was powerful and he was not. He wanted to cringe from the weight of the concern in her voice.

"As well as can be expected," he said distantly, looking away from her and at Scott Summers instead. The man was a professional, he would give Cyclops that. No double takes, no smirks, no looks of horror, and if his eyes had widened in shock on seeing his old foe so reduced, who'd have been able to tell through the visor? Wolverine, too, was keeping his face professional and unconcerned, but it hurt too much still to recall Logan's betrayal. Erik would prefer to pretend the man simply wasn't there.

"Does he know where to find the killer?" Cyclops asked.

Mildly annoyed that the question was directed at Storm and Psylocke instead of him, Erik spoke. "She should be at her home, crippled from attacking Westchester from here if that's indeed what she did. Unfortunately I never approached her home from the road, so I'm not sure how to get there, but since the local police were recently questioning me in the belief that I was her, it shouldn't be difficult for a telepath to get her address from them."

Cyclops nodded. "All right. Jean, that's your department."

Too late Erik realized that any police she mindread to get the body snatcher's location would probably know of both his panic attack and everything he'd told Devoe. A sick wave of humiliation rose through him at the thought of the X-Men learning what had happened to him. To admit he'd been held captive was nothing; they'd all been held captive far too often for anyone to be humiliated by that alone. It was par for the course in their lives. To admit he'd been tortured was worse, but Rogue had seen him after Zaladane and Brainchild had finished with him, after all. But for them to know he'd been raped and treated as a sex slave was nearly unendurable... only, the words were already out of his mouth, and there was no way to call them back.

Jean looked at him, and he heard her voice in his mind. _//Is there a problem?//_ She was trying to keep emotion out of her mindvoice, but unlike Xavier she'd never been good at it-- he could "hear" pity and anger and dislike all twined around the words.

But there _was_ no other way to find the body snatcher. And as sick as the thought made him, if the X-Men learning of his shame was the price of getting his body back, he had to pay it. _//Do what must be done,//_ he sent back at her, trying to strip his own mindvoice of the telltale emotional overtones, and painfully aware that he was likely failing miserably.

"Right. I'll take care of it," she said aloud-- mental exchanges went by so fast that there hadn't been a noticeable gap in the conversation-- and flew off.

Cyclops turned to Erik. "Professor Xavier's asked us to help you get your body back," he said, still in the professional soldier voice but with just enough of a hint of disapproval that Erik knew Cyclops would have preferred a different plan. "You're the expert on the enemy. How do her powers work?"

"She's far from expert with mine. And she's likely crippled herself by attacking Xavier at this distance. As for her own power, she can only jump back into this body I occupy. From here, she can take anyone she touches."

"So it sounds like Jean should be guarding you, since she'd be able to sense the switch and immobilize her once she's in her own body."

"I concur," Storm said. "As for the rest of us, assuming she is not crippled, our goal is to persuade her to switch without harming Magneto's body."

"Without doing it permanent damage, anyway," Cyclops said.

"But non-permanent damage is all right?" Iceman asked.

"Bobby, this is a bad situation and you ain't helpin'," Rogue snapped.

The idea of the X-Men doing "non-permanent" damage to his true body bothered him terribly, but there was no help for it-- that _was_ the only way to take down the body snatcher. "He's right," Erik said sharply, the fact that he had to agree with Iceman in this matter making him irrationally angry. "If she is _not_ incapacitated, then yes, non-permanent damage is exactly what you will have to do. If she is unconscious or stunned, she cannot switch. If she isn't hurt badly enough, she won't. I've tried both."

"How?" Iceman asked. "No offense, but even without powers, the body you've got now doesn't look like it could fight its way out of a wet paper bag. I mean, _I_ could beat you up without powers, and I'm not exactly as buff as your real body is."

Erik smiled tightly. A brief fantasy of breaking Drake's nose flitted through his head. That would shut him up. "You'd be welcome to try, Iceman. Physical strength is only one part of fighting prowess, and I retain all my skills." He looked back at Cyclops. "She must be made to fear for her life, but think that taking this body back would afford her an escape route. Also, I feel I should point out that if you actually _do_ cause fatal damage to my body and thus force her to jump... I will ensure that I am not the only one who dies today. Our alliance is predicated on your _not_ doing my body permanent damage, am I understood?"

"The threats are hardly necessary, Magnus," Storm said sternly. "We have no intention of doing your body permanent damage. Charles has very specifically asked us to _aid_ you, not harm you."

He thought of pointing out that Charles had, most likely, not ordered Wolverine to try to kill him last time, but decided that it would only sound petty. He'd made his point. "Very well. But all of this is moot regardless, because if she isn't crippled, then she's in Westchester."

"How do you know?" the black man asked.

"Range. If she incapacitated Xavier, and took out the mansion's electronics, then either she's near there, or she's here and suffering terribly for the effort. There is a reason I don't choose to use my powers over such great distances."

"What is your effective range, then?" the man asked again.

"Cyclops, Storm-- have you failed to make your newest recruit read up on me? Foolish of you."

"Bishop is familiar with your file," Cyclops said. "We prepare new X-Men thoroughly; you've been thought dead too many times for us to take that as indication you won't be a threat again."

"I'd be happy to stay here and make nice with terrorist murderers all day," Archangel said, "but don't we have a job to do?"

"We're waiting for Jean," Cyclops said. "Whether the killer's crippled or not, we can't afford to let her switch without having someone that can grab her without touching her. Iceman or Gambit or I could knock her unconscious easily enough, but in order to handle her if we're taking her captive, we need TK. Or Storm, but I don't think trying to use wind to carry her into the Blackbird is all that feasible. Bishop, I want you front. If she's not incapacitated, your power will come in handy. Storm, I'm thinking you, me, Rogue, Iceman and Gambit can move in to harry her and set her up for Psylocke to make the final strike, what do you think?"

Storm nodded. "If we strike within a house, I will be less useful, but Psylocke will have more cover and the killer's flight advantage will be negated. We should attempt to force her into a building if she is not already in one. I can make the outdoors less than hospitable to her."

"Why do you want Bishop front?" Erik asked. "I'm not familiar with his powers."

"And it's going to stay that way," Cyclops said. "Last time I checked you were an enemy, mister. You don't want to tell us your actual effective range, so what makes you think we want to tell _you_ anything you don't already know?"

"Fair enough." At least Cyclops was honest. He could respect that.

"What about me?" Archangel asked Cyclops.

Erik said acerbically, "You and your metal wings should run to the Blackbird and hide, along with Wolverine. I said she was all but crippled, but that might change if a ready supply of light, sharp, ferrous blades comes within her view."

The metal wings flexed slightly. "Would you like to find out just how sharp these light ferrous blades really are?"

"Warren--" Storm began.

"I am _not_ taking orders from _him_. Or her. Or whatever it is."

"That was way uncalled for, Warren," Rogue said hotly. "Ah know you don't much like Magneto, but he's our ally in this and there ain't no call to insult him just 'cause a woman stole his body."

"He's also right," Cyclops said. "The two of you would be most effective if we were out to kill her. We're not. So I want you two bringing up the rear, behind Jean, and only coming into play if things go rancid."

"Then what the flamin' hell did you drag us all the way out here for, Cyke?" Wolverine scowled at Cyclops. "We coulda stayed home an' played poker with Petey and Hank if you didn't need us."

"Oh, I need you," Cyclops said, a grim note to his voice. "With Jean guarding Magneto, the most likely way for things to go south would be if the killer gets _Jean's_ body. And if that happens, we need to terrorize her into getting out. Fast."

"You don't expect either of us to actually hurt Jean's body, do you?" Archangel asked disbelievingly.

"Of course not. But if she has any familiarity at all with the X-Men, she'll guess that any of the rest of us would hesitate. You two have reps. She doesn't know you can control yourselves if it's someone you care about." His visored gaze seemed to fixate on the two men as if pinning them. "You _can_ control yourselves, right?"

"I would not stake _my_ lover's life on it," Erik muttered.

"Shut up, Magneto. Of course I can control myself," Archangel said coldly. "I'd never hurt Jeannie."

"Logan?"

"Ya gotta _ask_, Cyke?"

Further discussion was cut off by the object of the discussion returning. "Got it," Jean said. "They called in the Avengers, so I sent to Hank and had him call them off. No sense in making things complicated."

"What took you so long?" Iceman asked. "I don't know about _you_, but standing around shooting the breeze with one of our oldest enemies is just not on my top ten list of favorite things to do."

"The feeling is assuredly mutual," Erik snapped. Dear God, but he hated being dependent on these people. The analgesic was wearing off, and the pain was returning in dull waves from his feet and legs and shoulder. He wanted his powers so very much. Attack them all and fly away.

A thunderclap rolled, startlingly loud and near. "Enough!" Storm shouted. "X-Men, we have work to do. Professor Xavier has asked us to ally ourselves with Magneto, and if any of us find that unbearable, I suggest he or she remain behind on this mission." No one moved. "And you, Magnus, I expected better of. Now, can we all not attend our mission without sniping at one another?"

"Yes, Mommy," Iceman said cheerily.

* * *

Between Jean, Storm, Rogue and Archangel, the entire group was able to fly over the woods, a journey that had taken Erik four hours of grueling travel taking the group ten minutes. He had never seen the house from the air, but years of practice at extrapolating aerial views into landbound ones and vice versa enabled him to immediately recognize the place. "That's it."

"I'm not sensing her in there," Jean warned. "Or anyone."

"She may have some unusual kind of mindshield," Cyclops said.

Jean was levitating herself, Erik, Cyclops, and Iceman in a TK bubble, while Archangel carried Wolverine, Rogue carried Bishop, and Storm, Gambit and Psylocke all rode Storm's winds. The wind made it impossible to hear X-Men outside the TK bubble, but all the X-Men appeared to be using radios nowadays. Inside the TK bubble, the howl of the wind was muted to a dull roar, so it was quite easy to hear the X-Men in the bubble. "All right!" Cyclops said to his radio. "Rogue, take Bishop and go in, hard! Storm, Gambit, go in from the left; Psylocke, hang back. Bobby, you and I will go right, after Rogue and Bishop hit. Jean, you and Magneto go in behind after everyone else has gone in; Psylocke, you're with them. Archangel and Wolverine, bring up the rear. Let's go!"

Most of the X-Men dive-bombed the house, following the mental map Erik had sent to Jean of the interior layout. Jean let Cyclops and Iceman out of the force bubble-- a great relief, as Iceman's presence was making the air in the bubble considerably cooler than was comfortable as the day approached its end-- and then shook her head as she lowered herself and Erik to the ground. "She's not there," she muttered.

"She _has_ to be," Erik said, frustrated. "The X-Men's location is a secret, is it not? She wouldn't have known to go to Westchester. Besides, the pulse hit here, Westchester _and_ struck the Blackbird in transit. Where else could she have been?"

Behind them, Archangel and Wolverine landed. "This whole place stinks of ozone," Wolverine said. "I'm gonna see if I can find a trail. Warren, you wanna come with? I might need air transport."

"And what will you do if you find her?" Erik asked. "Aside from die horribly as she uses the metal in your bodies as weapons against you?"

"Yell for help, of course," Wolverine said. "We ain't stupid, Maggie. 'Sides, if she's around here, she's crippled, right? Or didja get that wrong too?"

"She's crippled, yes. But she may not be completely helpless. After such a display of power, _I_ would be incapable of doing much else but lying down with a migraine-- unless a collection of weapons such as you present come upon me. Do you have any idea how easy it would be for her to destroy you?"

"So how come you never did it?" Wolverine asked. "And don't gimme that 'I don't want to kill fellow mutants' crap. There's been plenty of times you've been out for blood."

"Yes. After you pushed me to the point where taking you captive seemed no longer an option. She will not need to be pushed so far. You're men of power-- she'll delight in killing you."

"I'd say go," Jean said. "You won't find her. But maybe you'll find a trail we can all follow."

"How do you know we won't find her?" Archangel asked.

"Professor Xavier sensed her, with Cerebro. She isn't invisible to mental scans. But there's no one around here but the neighbors and a lot of woods."

"So you and I wouldn't seem to have much to do," Psylocke said, coming up to join the group.

"No. Come on. While Archangel and Wolverine look around outside for her trail, maybe the three of us can find some evidence inside. Travel brochures, a map, anything to indicate where she might have gone."

Erik considered it highly unlikely, but he followed the two X-Men into the house, tensing. He had nothing to be afraid of-- ten X-Men seemed overkill even for a battle against _him_, and as resourceful as the body snatcher had proven herself to be, still she lacked his skill and experience. He was as safe as one ever got in a combat zone, safer by far than he usually was when surrounded by ten X-Men, but this house itself held far too many unpleasant memories for him.

His eyes widened, startled, as they entered. This was the kitchen, the place where he'd defeated her and won his freedom, and there was nothing in it. Oh, she'd abandoned some of the crockery, but her elaborate collection of kitchen toys was gone, as were the annoying little knickknacks that used to sit on every open surface. Cautiously he opened the door to his cell and peered down into the basement. The bed was still there, and the stockpiled cans. He didn't see the metal cables, but then remembered that the last place she'd used them on him had been upstairs. Quickly he turned away, heading into the living room.

It had been stripped bare. She'd taken all the furniture, all the knickknacks, all the surreal and disturbing art by no one he recognized. All she'd left was the ancient, worn, light green carpet. Several times she'd complained to him about that carpet, declaring that the next thing she ought to do with his stolen money was buy a new one, but she had never gotten around to it.

Why had she packed and left? He didn't understand it. This was her home. Judging from the police's behavior, she was a long term resident here. Why leave?...

He met Gambit by the stairs to the upper floor. "Your friend, looks like she left in a big hurry," the Cajun said. "She know we were coming, maybe?"

"If she did, I didn't tell her."

"No great big villain speeches 'bout how you goin' make her pay an' all dat."

Erik scowled. He didn't feel it necessary that Gambit know how lightly Lisa Davies had ever taken his promises of vengeance. "Perhaps she simply realized from the beginning the simple truth, that if ever I won free I'd see her dead."

"Didn't know the plan was for her to be dead, Magneto. Way I heard Cyclops, we takin' her captive. You got other plans?"

"Cyclops' opinion is of little concern to me."

Jean Grey came over, her face ashen and something crumpled in her hand. "What've they found?"

"Not'ing so far. Dis woman, she cleared de place out good. You got somet'ing, Jeannie?"

"Menu from a pizza delivery place," Jean said. "Could you go help Rogue out upstairs? I think she's in danger of wrecking some of the evidence."

Gambit grinned. "You t'ink it be better if she wreck poor Gambit's face instead?"

"Well, you _do_ seem to have some power to distract her," Jean said, grinning back.

Distract her? Erik tried very, very hard not to get angry at the implications of that. Rogue was not his. He had let her go, twice. But... _Gambit?_

After Gambit was gone, he asked in what he hoped was a disinterested voice, "So those two are together?"

"Is it any of your business?" Jean asked tightly, and he realized his first impression had been correct-- she was badly shaken by something. She'd been acting for Gambit's sake, and doing it well, but the ashen expression was back now. "Come into the kitchen."

In the kitchen, she pressed the crumpled paper she was holding into his hand. "I went down to investigate the basement. This was lying on the floor, on the other side of the bed."

He uncrumpled it and read.

"Dear Maggie-- Can I call you that? I guess I can, right? Not like _you_ can stop me-- as you can see, you and your superbuddies ain't gonna find me. I am _still_ way smarter than you give me credit for. Did you really think I wouldn't _guess_ that the moment you got away from me, you'd try to call in some favors, bring a world of shit down on my head? Guess you thought I'd just be hanging out here, all peaceful and unsuspecting, right? Guess again, babe. I'm gone, and you're never gonna find me-- until I find _you_. And then we're gonna have some fun.

"You shouldn't have left, you know. We were just getting to an understanding. I know we were. You liked it when I fucked you from behind and rubbed your clit last night, didn't you? Know you did, hon. Got all wet for me, didn't you? I figured you were finally learning, and I wasn't going to have to punish you so much. It was going to be so good, sweetheart. I'd have made it good for you too. But you fucked that up, didn't you, Maggie baby? You ran. Now you know I'm not gonna kill you, but I can hurt you bad. Remember when I made you beg for mercy? I can make you beg for death, too.

"So I want you thinking about how this scenario's going to play out--"

What followed was several paragraphs of an extremely graphic and sadistic fantasy describing luridly the torments she'd visit on him once she recaptured him. She began by describing, in humiliating detail, an incident a week ago where she'd bound him and tortured him by touching a heated curling iron to various places on his body, how she'd threatened to rape him with it and how he'd begged her not to, and how she'd made him show his "gratitude" for being spared when she'd released him without doing that. She then fantasized elaborately and pornographically about how she'd do it to him again when she recaptured him, only this time she would make the torture last much longer and she'd finish up by raping him, first with the curling iron and then with the stolen body.

The sick words hit him like a physical blow, triggering memories he couldn't bear, not right now, not in front of a telepath. Erik went completely white as he read, not so much at the threat-- the X-Men would not let him be recaptured, so her threats were meaningless-- but at the thought of any of the X-Men knowing this much about what she'd done to him. "How much did you read?" he asked harshly, dry-mouthed.

"I-- I thought it was evidence-- and when I picked it up to look at it, I couldn't help--"

"You had no right," he said, crumpling the paper in his hands. "Did you not _see_ the letter was addressed to me?"

"I didn't! I just looked at it and saw-- and by the time I realized it was to you, I'd already read--"

"Who on Earth did you _think_ such a letter would have been written to? Did you not think at _all_, woman? Or was it prurient curiosity that drove you? To imagine your childhood enemy brought so low must have thrilled your vengeful little soul--"

"It did _not!_" Fury chased away the guilt on her face. "Besides, if you didn't want anyone knowing prurient details why did you tell the whole story to the rape counselor at the police station?"

"Shout a little louder. I don't think _all_ the X-Men have heard you yet."

"None of them heard me." _//But we can have this conversation privately if you're so scared of everyone finding out.//_ The emotional overtone was rage, mixed with a bit of contempt, a huge load of pity and a grudging respect for his survival, as well as a bit of physical nausea.

_//Then let us rather!//_ He didn't like the revealing nature of mindspeech-- though he was as good as any telepath at partially masking overtones, it was impossible to be as well-disguised as one could be with voice-- but then, right now he didn't trust his voice anyway, and telepathic conversations could not be casually overhead. _//I told the policewoman what I did because she would not stop hounding me until I did, and she did not know who I truly am. I suppose now all the X-Men know, or will? A bit of juicy information about my weaknesses, to pity me for or laugh at me about?//_

//No!// The force of the mental snarl almost knocked him off balance. _//I destroyed the evidence, Magneto. I took the bloody clothes they'd sealed up for evidence, I shredded their paperwork, I rewrote all their memories so they'd think the whole incident was months past and safely resolved. Charles would have my head for this, if you didn't disrupt his moral center every time you insinuate yourself back into his life.//_

He was shocked. "Why?" he asked aloud.

_//We don't need reports of a mutant serial killer. You know that as well as I do. As for the rest of the X-Men, I never planned on telling them any of this. What I did, yes, I'm going to come clean about that. But what you told the policewoman, what you were doing in that hospital ward, and what that bitch wrote about what she did to you-- none of them are going to hear about it from me. Not even Scott.//_

Immediately he felt ashamed for questioning her integrity. "I-- thank you," he said, not knowing quite what else to say. The cold fingers of ice around his heart had started to ease, that they wouldn't all know, that his helplessness and humiliation wouldn't be a spectacle for their amusement or pity. He should have known better of Charles' prize student, but her relentless hatred of him made it hard for him to remember sometimes that she was very much a woman to be respected.

"Don't thank me, Magneto," she snapped. "I don't want your gratitude. If I heard you were dead, I wouldn't shed a tear. But no one deserves what-- what she did, not even you."

"I _am_ sorry if it troubles your moral center," he said acidly, "but whether you want my gratitude or not, you have it regardless. You are a naive and foolish child, but I've always respected your courage and strength-- and I'm glad to see that Charles' prize pupil is actually capable of compassion like his. I _am_ grateful, and ashamed I thought you so shallow."

Before she could answer, Bishop entered. "There is nothing here. Not even evidence, given that we know what the killer looks like and what her powers are. We have no psychometrist and I very much doubt mundane forensics could tell us _where_ she has chosen to go. Wolverine, and perhaps Xavier, may be our best hopes."

"I've contacted Charles. He feels awful-- physically, I mean-- and he's confirmed that Cerebro's well and truly wrecked," Jean said. "I don't think he's going to be much help."

Bishop shook his head. "That's not what I meant, actually. I don't know if your science of psychology is well defined enough for this, but in my day, we would have profilers-- psychologists, very often telepaths-- devise detailed profiles of serial killers and other criminals, to predict where they would strike next. We could then intercept them."

Jean nodded. "We do something like that today. I don't know how useful it is, though."

"It's foolishness," Erik said. "We know her target-- men, preferably attractive young ones with power-- and we know her hunting grounds, the entire Northeast Coast. The range is unacceptably broad. How could we hope to find her with such parameters?"

"You're not a profiler," Bishop said. "Neither am I, so I couldn't tell you how they do it, but they were capable of making predictions like 'the west side of Oldcity, within the next three days.' And they were accurate. I was hoping Professor Xavier might be able to do something of similar nature."

Jean's eyes went slightly glazed, sign of a telepathic conversation. "Logan's got something," she reported.

* * *

Outside, Wolverine was standing by oddly-shaped gouges in the dirt. In the dimness of the evening, Erik couldn't quite make out what they looked like, but Wolverine, after all, could see better. "Truck wheels," he said. "18-wheeler, looks like. She had it parked here; judgin' from the way the tracks go, looks like she landed it here with her powers, then drove it onta the driveway an' down to the road, most likely. We got diesel scent, so she was probably drivin' it for real, too, not just usin' Maggie's powers."

"Is there any way to tell which way she went?" Cyclops asked.

Bishop unfolded a map from his pocket and shone a pen light at it. "I picked up a local map at a convenience store nearby, earlier. Not all the roads in the area can bear truck traffic; there might be only a handful of routes she might realistically have taken."

Cyclops nodded. "It's likely she'd want to hit I-80. Wolverine, is there any way you can tell which way she went?"

"Yeah, if the engine was on an' there wasn't too much traffic, I could follow the diesel scent."

"I don't think there was much traffic on the road," Erik said. "I was on it once, and there was no traffic, in the middle of the day."

"Good. Jean, Bishop, Wolverine, go on down and see how far you can retrace the route. Magneto, does it make sense that she'd be using your powers _and_ having the engine on, or does it make more sense that, if the engine's on, it's because she knows how to drive a truck?"

Erik rubbed his eyes. Exhaustion was catching up with him, and Cyclops's question made no sense at all. "I'm sorry, can you rephrase that?"

"Use single-syllable words," Iceman suggested. "Wouldn't want to strain the Master of Magnetism's brain."

"We need to know if she's an experienced truck driver or not. If she is, she'll likely go to ground at a truck stop. If not, she'll go somewhere else, maybe a real hotel, and probably she'll ditch the truck at some point. Since it takes experience and training to drive a truck, do you think she has such experience? Or is she just using your powers?"

"She could be doing either," Erik said irritably. "I don't know where she would have learned to drive a truck, but since she occupies male bodies frequently and she says she can understand how to do anything a body she's stolen can do, I wouldn't put it past her to have learned to drive a truck. But that has nothing to do with where she's likely to go. She won't 'ditch' the truck, as you say-- it has all her possessions in it. But she can pick it up and carry it at any time; she's not limited to the highway." He sat down heavily on a lawn chair, quickly adjusting position as he accidentally put weight on his injured groin. "You've lost her." The sense of despair overwhelmed him, trebling his exhaustion. His legs hurt, his abdomen hurt, his shoulder was starting to throb horribly where the refrigerator had hit it, and he couldn't actually remember his feet ever hurting worse than this; when he'd bled into the snow as he ran away from Auschwitz, the cold had turned the feet into numb lumps, and so the pain had ceased, though the damage had probably been worse.

"Not necessarily, mister. But you're the one who said she'd be crippled. What happened?"

"How should I know? She _should_ be crippled! She should have been lying here incapacitated, with nothing to stop me from taking my body back! I don't know how she got away, I don't know _why_ she's not crippled, all I know is that _you_, with your incompetence, have _lost_ her, and she's going to kill again and again until you stop her!"

"_Our_ incompetence?" Iceman asked. "_We're_ not the ones who got our bodies stolen by some random chick off the street."

"Bobby, you hush up," Rogue snapped. "Ah'm sure Magnus feels bad enough about what happened without you rubbin' it in his face."

"Yeah, well, he's the one calling us incompetent, and I don't see him actually being all that fantastic at the moment, you know?"

"The stakes are a little higher right now than your latest attempt at world conquest getting foiled, Magneto," Cyclops said. "You're working on the side of the angels this time, and that means you don't have the option of throwing your hands up in the air and saying to hell with it if your first plan doesn't work out. I need to know where she'd have likely gone, and you're the expert, mister, whether you like it or not. So, if she's not stuck here crippled, and she obviously isn't, then why not? Is it possible she left before attacking? If so, and we can retrace her route, she might be parked by the side of the road, unconscious. If not, then why not? Is it possible that when Cortez aped your power enough to kill you, the effects were permanent, and the only reason you didn't test out the high limits of your range was that you were experienced with it being dangerous, so you never found out your range had improved?"

"What Cortez did to me did indeed permanently amplify my power," Erik said tiredly. "But I did test the range of the amplification. I never accept limitations unless I must, Cyclops; I test myself constantly. And I _still_ did not have that kind of power. As for whether or not she left first... yes. Yes, that must be it. She thought I would contact superheroes and attack her, so as soon as she lost me she must have moved. Did Charles initiate contact with her, or her with him?"

"He was using Cerebro. I assume he made contact."

"That's it, then." He closed his eyes. "So we've lost her. She could be anywhere."

"Ah'm afraid he's got a point, Cyclops," Rogue said. "There's a truck stop right off this exit, and Ah went through there with mah porta-Cerebro. Didn't get so much as a nibble, let alone an indicator for a mutant powerful as Magneto. An' if she was taken out by that wave that made us crash the Blackbird, then there ain't no way she could've gotten to the truck stop after Ah left it."

"Dat's de t'ing," Gambit said. "We've been all over de place wit' de petits Cerebros, and de only mutant sign we got at all was de minute one for Magneto's new body. So where den might she've gone?"

"Probably onto I-80," Cyclops said. "Trouble is, the Blackbird flies too fast for the porta-Cerebro to get a reading. We'd need to drive up and down the highway, and we just don't know-- she had at least two hours from the point where we got the phone call until we got the pulse wave, and maybe longer than that. Magneto, how long would it have taken her to move all the furniture in her house out and leave? And at what time this morning did you escape?"

He didn't know. He didn't know, and he had to know, because it was the only way they were going to stop her. Erik mentally cudgeled his sluggish brain into movement. "I don't... I think I must have left at nine, something like that... what time did I call?"

"One thirty."

"So then... four hours... no, because I saw her in the woods. Maybe... maybe two hours... it doesn't seem like enough time, but maybe."

"She attacked at around three thirty. We were almost here when the EMP took out the Blackbird."

"Oh... yes, right... I thought your technology was shielded."

"It is."

"Then she's going to have half the world searching for her. Me. If she took out a shielded airplane..."

"We must have been practically on top of her at the time. And we were able to reinitialize in time to keep from actually crashing, though it wasn't a nice landing."

"It seems," Storm said, "that it is indeed possible that the body snatcher fled before Charles made contact with her, but there are entirely too many variables to say how far she might have gone. I suggest that we follow whatever route Logan points out for us, but that if it yields nothing, we return home, regroup and plan another approach in the morning. We will get nowhere without a sensible plan devised by clear heads."

"And what if she kills tonight, while we're all sleeping and clearing our heads?" Erik asked harshly.

Storm bowed her head. "Then we accept that failure onto our consciences. But unless Logan finds her now, we will not successfully be able to find her tonight, not without a better plan than we have. It is also unlikely that she will kill tonight, not when she is fleeing from justice, and possibly crippled. And you, Magnus, plainly need rest desperately. In your own body, I'm sure the exertions you've undergone today would be nothing, but this one is clearly frailer."

"I'm fine."

"No. You are most certainly not fine." She shook her head. "Let us leave the search to the others for the moment, and return to the Blackbird. Jean can contact us telepathically if our input is needed."

She put her hand on his arm. He threw it off furiously, standing. "I don't need your coddling, Ororo!"

"Who's speaking of coddling? If we wish to return home tonight, someone is needed to make sure the Blackbird will indeed actually fly, and since Hank is not with us, you are probably the most experienced at mechanical repair that we have."

"Now wait a minute." Archangel stared at Storm. "You're not going to let _him_ mess around with the Blackbird, are you?"

"Since he'll be aboard it when we return to the mansion, I hardly think he'll try to kill us all," Storm said. "And there's no denying that he's the most adept of any of us when it comes to machinery."

"Yes, but with his powers!"

"And I understood weather and winds when I had lost mine. Power can be an excellent tool for learning, but once one has learned, the knowledge remains when the power is gone."

"Ah'll help," Rogue volunteered.

"Then let us go."

* * *

It was only after he actually got a chance to look at the Blackbird and check its systems that he realized that Ororo had manipulated him, although, to be honest, it wasn't as if she'd ever given him a chance to refuse her request, either. But the Blackbird was fine. Some damage to the electronics, but not nearly enough to prevent them from flying; some physical damage, again not enough to hamper flight; and after the electronics were IPLed and the engines had spun up, the plane ran just fine. The whole thing had been a pretext to get him to the Blackbird while giving him a face-saving excuse. He wasn't sure whether he was being prevented from punching Iceman in the face or protected from being murdered by someone like Archangel. Maybe both. The punching Iceman thing had come awfully close to reality a few times, and only the thought of the humiliation he'd suffer when Iceman retaliated and trapped him in ice and he'd be powerless to break free had held him back.

Exhaustion warred with annoyance at Storm and the need to seem stronger than he was lest Rogue start trying to mother him. Instead, he went rummaging through the cabin for the travel rations. Storm came in while he was wondering if his mind had actually gone or if they'd moved the storage locker. "Is there something I can help you with, Magnus?"

"Don't you still have the sandwiches?" he asked, more peevishly than he'd intended to.

She went to the other side of the Blackbird and flipped open something that hadn't looked like any sort of hatch at all. "We've remodeled the interior somewhat. What would you like? There is ham, turkey, roast beef, cheese, and vegemite."

He blinked at her. "Vegemite?"

"I acquired a taste for it when we were in Australia. I have a habit of going native, wherever I am." She smiled, somewhat sheepishly.

"Roast beef, please." After the blood loss, he felt sure some iron would do him good. And that reminded him. "Do you still have... well..." No, he would not lose his nerve. She'd seen him injured before. "The portable medical equipment? Regenerators, painkillers, the like?"

"Of course." She tossed him the roast beef sandwich and a small bottled water. "Right over here."

There were regenerators in three different shapes-- a small circle the size of his palm, a large rectangle nearly the size of his entire back, and a thin, slender rod. The rod was the kind of thing he needed desperately for the internal bleeding, but there was no way to carry the regenerator into the airplane's tiny bathroom without making it really obvious to Storm, and Rogue too if she were to come in while he was holding it, exactly what the body snatcher had done to him. It made him physically ill that Jean Grey knew. Storm and Rogue were the closest he had to friends among the X-Men; he could not bear their pity any more than he could bear the rest of the X-Men's probable amusement in his humiliation. He settled for taking the palm-sized one and applying it to his feet, while devouring the sandwich like a starving animal. When he got to Xavier's mansion, there was a full-body regenerator he could use.

Ten minutes and two more sandwiches later, the rest of the X-Men showed up. They seemed discouraged. Erik knew what the answer was going to be, but couldn't stop himself from asking, "What did you find?"

"We lost the trail on the main road leading to Interstate 80," Bishop said tersely.

"We'll head for home," Cyclops said. "Talk to the Professor, find out if he found out anything about her when he contacted her. Tomorrow we'll regroup and come up with a better plan, as Storm suggested, but I think we've done all we can today."

Erik said nothing. He kept feeling there should be _something_ they were doing, anything, that to leave now was to give up. It smacked unfortunately of fleeing yet another destroyed base and another shattered plan for world conquest, in fact. Cyclops had pointed out the similarity himself, but didn't seem to care now. It was so galling to have been so close to bringing her down, getting his body back, taking revenge... another day in this body seemed an unbearable burden, and the thought that she might kill again weighed on his heart. But common sense told him that Cyclops and Ororo were right; he himself was dead on his feet, in severe pain, and barely able to maintain his concentration on anything. Tonight he could use the regenerator, heal the damage to this body, and get some sleep. Tomorrow he'd have a fresh mind, and perhaps if he could piece together the sequence of events, when exactly she _had_ fled, it would help in tracking her down.

He sat down in one of the Blackbird's chairs in the back. There were almost not enough chairs to go around; ten X-Men did not usually take the Blackbird out somewhere. Only Storm's decision-- prompted, she claimed, by a touch of claustrophobia, and the desire not to leave any stone unturned-- to take one of the portable Cerebros and sweep up and down I-80 for a bit while the rest of them were flying to New York, left a chair free for him. The plane sounded and felt much like it had the handful of times he'd been aboard it as an X-Man, flying to the latest disaster area, but it felt far more enclosing than when he'd been able to track everything the engine was doing, when he'd been able to tear it apart with his mind and fly free. He disliked being so close to the X-Men. Bishop was sitting across from him, looking at him. As if he could do anything, here and now. As if he weren't totally powerless.

He turned away from Bishop, to stare out the windshield, but it was too far away, a distant smudge of darkness and stars. In the Sonderkommando barracks he'd stared out at the stars at night, after he had enough seniority to grab a bunk by the window, and imagined someday flying away to them, like an astronaut in the science fiction novels he'd loved as a boy. In the body snatcher's bedroom, there was a window across from the bed, and he'd turned his head to stare out at the stars as she did what she pleased with him, longing for the freedom of space, of his fallen asteroid. In the camp, in the body snatcher's home, the thought of being aboard an airplane, safe, being transported to the home of an old friend, would have been something to dream of desperately, a wondrous fantasy with which to shut out the awful reality. Now he was here. Why wasn't it enough? Why did he want to attack them all, tear free, run and keep running?

No point to that. And he was so tired. He closed his eyes, just for a moment. In his tense condition it wasn't as if he'd be able to sleep, he was sure. Not surrounded by enemies. But he just needed to close his eyes for a bit.

The plane lurched. He smelled ozone, felt his hair stand on end, opened his mouth to scream-- and the plane tore apart. As he'd done to them a dozen times, but now _he_ was in the plane, and he heard them screaming as they fell, and he was falling. The wind whipped their screams away, rushed into his mouth and silenced his. Auschwitz had taught him new reflexes-- in the face of absolute terror, he rarely screamed. Instead, his throat froze and he could not speak. He was falling, falling to his death for he had no powers, couldn't catch the lines and bend them around him to hold him up, and _she_ was below him, in his body, smiling. There was no way to fly, to change trajectory, to bend cruel gravity to his will. The body snatcher floated beneath him, naked and erect and laughing, and as he fell directly toward her arms his throat unfroze, and he did scream.

His body jerked wildly. Male arms were touching him, shaking him. The body snatcher's? But when he opened his eyes, the skin was dark brown. The sight was a reassuring jolt of reality. Where he'd grown up, the only dark-skinned people were fellow victims; most of the superheroes who'd attacked him in his career, and all of the Nazis and Russians and other thugs who'd abused him, were white. He looked up into Bishop's face-- but hadn't the plane been torn apart? And then he realized.

"Are you all right?" Bishop asked gruffly.

The X-Men were all staring at him. Erik's face flamed. He must have screamed in reality as well. He should have known better than to fall asleep here, to even risk it by closing his eyes when he was so exhausted. "I'm fine," he said shortly.

"Good." Bishop returned to his seat. Erik wondered if Bishop had been hovering over him due to concern for his well-being or preparing to strike if he were somehow threatening. Possibly both. He'd never met the man before today, but he recognized a soldier when he saw one.

"Musta been one hell of a dream, dat," Gambit said from the seat in front of him. "All dat screamin' an' carryin' on."

Erik went absolutely white. In the dream, he hadn't been able to scream. Had he been doing so in real life the whole time he'd been trying in the dream? And then Rogue said, "What screaming and carrying on, Remy? Most Ah heard was a little gasp, and then Bishop woke him up. Your hearing must be _amazin'_."

The last had been clearly sarcastic, but Gambit (Remy? That was his real name?) took it as flirtation. "Ain't de only amazin' t'ing about Gambit, chere," he said, grinning broadly.

"Ah'm sure."

"Could show you a few of Gambit's amazin' talents, if you really wanted."

Erik stared at the side of the Blackbird fixedly and wondered what exactly he had done to deserve this, and if perhaps he should have let them sentence him to death at his trial. Perhaps in the long run his suffering would have been less.

He didn't sleep again for the rest of the trip to the mansion.


	3. With Friends Like These...

__

_The world weighs on my shoulders  
But what am I to do?  
You sometimes drive me crazy  
But I worry about you  
I know it makes no difference  
To what you're going through  
But I see the tip of the iceberg  
And I worry about you  
\--Rush, Distant Early Warning_

Erik felt claustrophobic in the extreme as the X-Men trooped upstairs from the Blackbird's hangar to the mansion proper, with him in the middle of them. He felt as if they were deliberately surrounding him, deliberately walking slowly to pin him so he couldn't get the medical attention he needed and the sleep he longed for. Physically he was too exhausted to push past them, even if he'd dared when they had powers and he did not.

As they exited the bowels of the mansion, Erik could hear Henry McCoy's booming voice. "...extremely foolish of you, Charles. You're far from recovered, and I must say it is extraordinarily ill-advised of you to go flitting about the mansion at the moment..."

Xavier came through the door, apparently paying no attention at all to the Beast. He was propped against the back of his hoverchair, resting his head, which was bandaged, against a large pillow. The bandages covered one eye, angled over to cover his ear and the entire left side of his head, running down his neck; they also wrapped around both temples, encircling the head there. The bandages didn't appear to indicate an impairment in his power, though; Erik felt the briefest of brushes against his mind, and then Xavier's good eye focused on him, his face lighting up.

"Magnus." The chair hummed over to where Erik stood, the X-Men stepping smoothly out of its way as if they'd practiced the move. "The circumstances could be better, but you have no idea how glad I am to see you're alive."

Xavier's hands reached out for him, as if to grasp his forearms or shoulders. It was a gesture they'd performed with one another a thousand times, a gesture of friendship, but Erik stiffened and pulled back before he could stop himself, before he could reassure himself that it was only Charles. Stupid, stupid. He'd always steeled himself before facing the body snatcher so he wouldn't try uselessly to pull away and thus humiliate himself, but it hadn't occurred to him that he'd need to steel himself against flinching from Charles.

He saw some emotion flicker across Charles' face-- sorrow? pity? probably pity, he thought bitterly-- and disappear just as rapidly, composing back into the calmly pleased expression he'd worn before. His hands came to rest on Erik's own, clasping him there rather than the upper arms. That, Erik could allow and respond to without fear, though Charles' grip seemed stronger than what he was used to feeling.

"Are you?" Erik asked. He meant it to come out acerbically, but he was too tired, and more of his bitterness showed than he'd intended.

"Our last meeting has haunted me for months, Magnus. I hoped you might still be alive, though there was no evidence to believe so, because I wanted a chance to try to put things right, to resolve our differences. It's as if, the last time I saw you was at your trial, and after that, when you vowed to take my students for me. The next time I saw you, you attacked me and made horrible accusations." He shook his head, and then winced in pain. "Ow. I shouldn't do that."

"No, most assuredly you should not," Beast said. "Charles, you should be _resting._ Horizontally. In a bed."

"What happened here?" Cyclops asked.

"Magneto's enemy blew up the power core, in my body," Xavier said ruefully. "I really didn't know that if you hit a Shi'ar power core with a fire extinguisher often enough, it blows up. Fortunately I was able to force her out of my body before the explosion, so I was able to get mostly out of the way, but it was a near thing."

"Wait," Erik said, cold fingers of fear sliding up his spine. "She took your body from _mine?_ She told me she couldn't do that!"

"Apparently, she can-- at least when a telepath attacks her." Xavier frowned. "We'll discuss this in the morning at a full debriefing. At the moment, my head feels as if I've been using it for a cannonball, and you, my friend, look as if you need sleep desperately. Jean's briefed me on the situation with Davies; I can say for certain that Davies had _already_ fled, and had pulled over to the side of some small local road, when I probed her, and she used a pulse attack after I'd regained my own body. So it's very likely she's still there, as incapacitated as you expected, Magnus. She isn't going to kill anyone tonight. So we have time to get some rest."

Charles' belief that the body snatcher was, in fact, crippled, and that there was a logical explanation for why she hadn't been at the house, gave Erik a small sense of relief, though he was far too tired to track Charles' explanation completely. Something else Charles had said bothered him, though. "How much did Jean tell you?" he asked harshly.

"She briefed me on your efforts to capture the body snatcher." _//She didn't tell me anything else, Magnus.//_

_//If she didn't tell you anything else, how do you know there's else to be told?//_

_//Firstly, you're broadcasting anxiety linked to "Jean" and "telling me things", which leads me to the belief you told me something or she read something in your mind in confidence. Secondly, though... I wasn't able to read Lee Davies in any detail, but what I did read, simply on a light surface scan, told me that she's extremely ill, or else quite evil, or perhaps both. I know she abused you sexually, because it was in the top of her thoughts when I scanned her. I'm sorry.//_

_//You're sorry. Every damned telepath who invades my privacy is always sorry. It doesn't help, Charles!//_

_//You saw me when Stryker had broken me and reduced me to a gibbering religious fanatic determined to murder those I loved most. In comparison, you're tired, injured and cranky, but your will is still strong and, despite what she tried to do to change it, you know who you are. You've resisted better than I did... you don't need to be ashamed of what happened to you.//_

Erik wasn't in the mood for Xavier's transparent manipulations. He firmed his mindshield, blocking further conversation. "I am too tired to stand here talking, Charles. I wish only a private visit to the medical bay, a shower, and sleep. Does any of this present difficulties?"

"Er... the private visit to the medical lab does, yes," Beast said.

Erik glared at him. "What, do you fear I'll switch the labels on the medications in an effort to poison you all, or something? I assure you, until I have my body back I have no desire to harm my allies."

"No, no, that's not the difficulty at all. I fear that with the power core down, all Shi'ar equipment in the mansion is currently non-functional."

"But you have non-Shi'ar medical tech--"

"No longer, sad to say. You see, we didn't foresee any need for it, so we donated it to Columbia University Hospital. Everything we currently have is Shi'ar state of the art, to be sure, and far superior to any Earthly technologies we used to possess-- except when the power core goes down. And while we did retain a small amount of quite elderly backup equipment, it wasn't electromagnetically shielded, and therefore is as non-functional as the rest."

"So you have no medical equipment at all?" Erik's voice came out far shriller than he'd intended.

"No, no, I didn't mean to say that. But what we have requires simultaneous advanced knowledge of medicine, mutant biochemistry, Shi'ar glyphs, and the idiosyncrasies of the technology. All the computer assistance we normally find so helpful is sadly offline, the end result being that I am the only person in the mansion knowledgeable enough to use the technology."

"I'm sure I can figure it out."

"Magneto. With the assistance of your powers, when you are fully alert, and when you are not the patient, I have no doubt but that you'd be capable of handling it. With no powers to assist you, however, and in your current state of exhaustion and medical need, I consider it sufficiently unsafe that, on my authority as the X-Men medic, I am not going to let you try. I may be able to do little about Charles abusing his health, but at the moment, my small talents are more than sufficient to pick you up and carry you if I were to find you attempting to use the equipment unwisely." McCoy grinned, an expression that was probably supposed to mark what he said as humor. Given that he was at least three times Erik's current mass, however, and that he was one of the original X-Men, the staunchest enemies he had here, Erik could not take the threat as anything other than deadly serious. He fought back a shudder at the fear Beast's threat to bodily manhandle him evoked.

"That won't be necessary," he said sharply. "It isn't important."

"Really, you needn't be concerned. I'm more than willing to assist you-- I do take the Hippocratic Oath quite seriously, so you need not fear that our past differences should create problems in your medical care."

"It isn't _necessary,_ I said." He couldn't keep it from coming out as a snarl. "I'll simply go to my room and rest. Or is there some reason why that will not be possible either?'

"Of course you can do that," Xavier said. "Rogue, take him to his old room, the suite near mine. See if you can find him a change of clothes after you've got him squared away."

"Sure thing," Rogue said, and turned to him. "C'mon, sugar, let's get you a place to stay."

When he'd moved in last time, Charles had given him one of the suites because he had a live-in lover-- Lee-- and because it was a trust issue. By putting him near himself, when he was too ill to defend himself, Charles was saying that he trusted Magnus, that he was not expecting an attack in the night. Perhaps giving him that room now was intended to remind Erik of those pleasant times, when true reconciliation seemed possible, as a way of manipulating him when he was weak. Or perhaps it was a reverse of that initial gesture, intended to tell the X-Men that he was harmless because he was under Xavier's watchful eye. You never knew, with Xavier. But it wasn't as if Erik had a choice.

Rogue seemed stiff, uncomfortable, as they headed to the room. Perhaps the implications of his female body were finally hitting her viscerally. Erik didn't attempt to make conversation. She guided him to the door to the suite. "Ah'll bring you up some clothes from the basement," she said. "Maybe some stuff of Kitty's might fit you."

"This body isn't _that_ short," he said incredulously.

"Maybe not-- Kitty was a skinny li'l thing. Ah'll bring up the box, and we'll find something for you, sugar. Ah promise."

"It's not that necessary. These are ill-fitting, but clean. What I need most of all is sleep."

"Ah'll bring it and leave it, then. You can go through in the morning and pick something out."

For a moment she stood there in the doorway, poised as if there were something she wanted to say, but not saying it. Erik couldn't quite bring himself to close the door on her, though he desperately wanted a shower and rest. "Was there anything else?" he finally said.

"Ah just-- Magnus, Ah--"

He took a deep breath. He didn't want to be rude, not to Rogue at least, but he was at the end of his patience. "Rogue, I'm sorry, but I'm very tired. If you would like to discuss something, this is a poor time."

"Ah just wanted to say how Ah'm real glad you're alive. Ah-- ah didn't like the way things ended, back there. Ah mean, truth was, Ah was pissed off at you for mucking with mah mind. But Ah kinda know what you're going through, and Ah'd never have wished this on you, Magnus, ever."

"You know what I'm going through?" It took an effort to control his temper. She meant well, he had to remember that. "When have you switched bodies, Rogue?"

"Other way around, sugar, remember? They switch into _mine._ And for a while Ah'm them as well as me, and if they're strong Ah can feel what they feel, and a lot of times they're right disconcerted to be in me. So it never happened to _me--_ but Ah'm the one who gets to keep their memory of it when they switch back. Ain't the same, Ah know, but it's not too far off, and if there's anything you need... anything you want to talk about..."

"I'm fine, Rogue. I only need sleep."

"Okay. Well, you just let me know if there's anything Ah can do, okay?"

And she was gone.

* * *

As he was getting into the shower, the thought occurred to Erik for the first time that Lisa Davies' power _did_ seem related to Rogue's. With a touch, either of them could steal a soul, entombing it in their own form while they used the powers of their victim. The difference was that Rogue didn't leave her own body, and Davies' did, which made Rogue considerably more dangerous; if Davies obliterated him as Rogue had destroyed Carol Danvers, she would not have the ability to grow in power and take more into herself. Davies could only take one body at a time, and if she destroyed the one he occupied, she would be bound forever to his. Still, even the superficial resemblance disturbed him. He wondered if this was what Rogue had seen and feared in him-- the potential for one you cared about to become a monster.

Hot water sheeted over his body. He continued to think about Rogue. She irritated him in a way he couldn't articulate. It wasn't just the oversolicitiousness-- simply being near her set his teeth on edge. He didn't think it was guilt-- she had had the choice to go with him, and had instead stayed with her team to fight him again, so he didn't feel that he had treated her overly badly by brainwashing her with the rest of the X-Men. Not given the provocation her team had offered him. It was something else, something he found slightly frightening. Which was absurd. Frightened of Rogue? Yes, she was powerful, but in his current condition, the least powerful of the X-Men was still such a grave threat that adding so much power as Rogue's was irrelevant; she was realistically no greater a danger to him than any of the X-Men were, and she was the least likely to harm him of any of them. They had almost been lovers, after all...

...something about that. Afraid of Rogue harming him sexually? The thought was absurd enough that it actually made him laugh, a short sharp bark. No, not that. What then?

And then he realized it. Once he had wanted Rogue; his memories of her recently were colored with tenderness and intense desire. But when he looked at her now, the desire was entirely absent. He still felt the tenderness, but he had less than no desire for sex with her... not only did he feel no physical desire, but actually the thought of sex in any context made him ill. And because his memories were so colored with that, when he looked at her now he could not help but remember, on some level, what he used to feel, and what made him sick to think of now. Escaping the body snatcher had not freed him from what she'd done to his mind and his sexuality; even the thought of making love to a woman he'd recently found beautiful nauseated him.

That was hardly Rogue's fault, and it enraged him that he was so weak. It should be _over._ The body snatcher had not been the first to rape and dehumanize him; he'd recovered before, why should he have to do it again? Why could he not remember the lessons he'd learned last time? He remembered convincing himself, and then Magda, that sex between lovers was a sacred, wonderful thing, that it bore no resemblance to the experience of rape. Intellectually he still did believe that, but emotionally he had lost it, was once again conflating the two. Why? Hadn't he already learned?

It would be different with his body back, he told himself, scrubbing his sore genitals hard enough to make them bleed again, and not entirely able to make himself stop. Part of him wanted to scrub them _off,_ to wear down the opening until it was closed again, smooth and sexless. But that wasn't what he truly wanted, no, not to be neuter-- everything would be fixed if only he were male again. This body was naturally designed to get its pleasure through receiving intercourse, a means of sex he'd never found pleasure in or had any interest in experiencing. Of course he couldn't want anyone or imagine wanting anyone. The anatomy he would want them _with_ was absent. Once he was male again, he could recover and put it all behind him.

He stepped out of the shower, hurting but finally feeling clean. When he'd showered in his prison, he'd known the cleanliness was only temporary; the very air was filled with her, a miasma settling on him, and there was no way to keep her out, keep her off him. She was gone now; he would never need to wash her away again. That was worth a bit of pain and blood. Rogue had thoughtfully left some feminine products on top of the box of put-aside X-woman clothes; he could use that to keep from bleeding onto the bed.

Except that what she'd left were tampons. Erik stared at the things, feeling sick again. A pad hadn't bothered him; it had been uncomfortable but he'd worn things far more uncomfortable in his life, and the weight of it against his vaginal opening had felt like armor, somewhat reassuring. Tampons, however, went _inside_. He couldn't do that. The one time he'd tried it had been sheer agony. The idea of perpetrating on himself another violation, even with something so small and thin as a tampon, made his gorge rise. He took the bag of tampons and threw it in the trash, and then put back on his underwear from the police station, with the bloody pad still in it. That was filthy, but better to endure a bit of this body's natural filth being pressed against him than to dirty clean sheets with it.

He threw himself on the bed. It was big and too soft to be comfortable; in his own body he'd had a bad back and had learned to love extra-firm mattresses. The mattress in his cell had been worn out, though, and this was an improvement over that. Feeling as if he would be vaguely unsafe if he wrapped himself in blankets, thereby making it impossible for himself to leap out of bed on short notice, he lay on top of the bed and closed his eyes. The moment he did, sleep started to wash over him in dizzying waves, like a tide suddenly becoming a tsunami. He didn't fight it.

* * *

Pain woke him, as it often did-- the need to urinate pressing painfully against his injuries inside. This body woke him to urinate two or three times a night as a general rule; he didn't know whether that was normal for it or due to the damage the body snatcher had done it. For a moment he was disoriented, wondering why the bed seemed larger and softer than he was used to, until he remembered where he was.

He should _not_ have to endure this pain. Not anymore. The X-Men had the technology to heal him; even if McCoy was telling the truth, and he probably was, about being unable to use the equipment in the medical lab without the ability to read Shi'ar fluently, there was a device that could do the job in the Blackbird. Rather than hunt through the box for clothing that would fit, he put on the shapeless sweatclothes again, and left his room.

The house seemed dark, but that could be misleading-- it was a sufficiently large mansion that there could be any number of pockets of activity that couldn't be seen or heard from here. He had no idea what time it was. The multiple naps he'd taken today had entirely ruined his time sense. But it had to be late, late enough that he could risk it. He slipped down the hallway and down the stairwell. The main passages to different floors were elevators, in deference to Charles, but additional stairwells had been installed for speed, out of the way and to the sides of the house, and because they were out of the way they weren't commonly used. Most people either used the main stairs, the main elevators, or if they could fly they'd flip open the top of the elevator and fly up the shaft. Kitty Pryde had commonly walked down through the ceiling. The side stairs never got used. So they were perfect for him.

On the basement level he left the stairwell more confidently, since it seemed unlikely anyone would be hanging around down here late at night, and headed for the hangar. Just as he neared the doors, however, a menacing shape seemed to melt out of the shadows. Involuntarily Erik took a step backward. "What are you doing down here?" Archangel asked. His voice seemed to have deepened and harshened with his transformation, or maybe just through age; no longer did he sound like the pretty-boy preppie with the golden tenor voice. There had been a time when Erik had found it impossible to take Angel seriously-- the poor little rich boy with the Aryan-dream looks and the too-pretty swan wings, a useless advertisement for Xavier's happy vision of equality who played at being a superhero because it was more fun than being a bored playboy. He had often singled Angel out in those days, seeing the rich boy as the potential weak link. Now--

\--well. Now was not the circumstance under which Erik really wanted to have a run-in with Apocalypse's blue-skinned protégé, the Archangel of Death with his killer wings that would be nothing to Erik, metal as they were, if he had his powers. Since he didn't have them now, he had to take Archangel entirely seriously. "None of your concern," he snapped. "My business is personal and will not affect the X-Men in any way."

"That's what _you_ say." Archangel stepped forward, forcing Erik to back up again. "But we all know how honest _you_ are, Magneto, so excuse me if I find it a little hard to believe you." The wings flexed slightly. Erik backed up again, wondering if he was going to have to flee for his life. Of all the X-Men, Archangel probably hated him the most.

"What you believe doesn't concern me. I am Charles' guest here, and I'd hardly be such a fool as to antagonize _him._ Let me pass."

"I don't think so. You might have suckered Charles-- you've done it before. But whatever it is you're really after, you're not going through _me_ to get it."

_Ah yes, the dread danger of allowing me medical equipment!_ But he couldn't say that, couldn't admit weakness to Archangel of all people. "Tell me, Archangel, were you sitting about in the shadows waiting for me to try to approach the hangar? I can't see any other reason for _you_ to be here."

"This is _my_ house, in case you hadn't noticed."

"The last time I checked, actually Charles' name was on the deed, and yours was not. I'm sure he's grateful for all the monetary assistance you've given him, but that hardly entitles you to own his house. And since I am _his_ guest, not yours, I do not see what right you have to restrict my movements."

"What _right?_ A murdering sociopathic supervillain wants to know what _right_ I have to stop him from prowling around in my own home?" The wings flexed again, this time powerfully enough that Erik quickly took two steps backward. "You've got a hell of a lot of nerve, Magneto!" He stepped forward and grabbed Erik's collar, shoving him toward the wall.

Utter panic hit. Erik kicked Archangel in the stomach and tore free, throwing himself to the floor as deadly sharp wings swept through the space where a split second ago, his head would have been. He tried to scoot backward, out of range, and hit the wall. Archangel came toward him with a deadly look in his eyes, the wings dipping low, as if to slice an opponent on the floor. Sick humiliation warred with terror, as Erik stared up at the man who was about to kill him.

And then Archangel staggered backwards several steps, his wings pushed back. Cool air ruffled Erik's hair, blowing in an impossible bending pattern along the wall and then out toward Archangel. "Warren!" Storm's voice cut through the rush of wind. "Stand aside!"

"The son-of-a-bitch just attacked me, Ororo!" Archangel shouted. "Why the hell are you defending this piece of trash?"

"Attacked you? With what powers?" Storm's voice was like ice. "What _right_ have you to use your wings against a powerless opponent?"

"He should have known better! I can't control the wings all the time-- you _know_ that. They respond to my emotions, not my conscious mind. I wouldn't ordinarily _have_ used my wings on an unarmed opponent, but this is Magneto we're talking about here!"

"Who is here as our guest, to assist us in tracking down the serial killer in his body. It is not an excuse, to attack or kill because your emotions had control of you! My emotions govern my powers, and I can refrain from killing. If you truly cared so much for the X-Men's ideals as you say, you would _not_ attack a powerless opponent no matter _who_ he is."

"I didn't mean to. I said that. But you don't have any clue what this bastard's _done_ to me. He's tortured me, sucked out my life force, kidnapped my _parents_ for Christ's sake-- do you really expect me to keep control when he kicks me in the stomach? Would _you_ be that forgiving, Ororo? It isn't like I meant to kill him, or attack him."

"You forget so easily, Archangel," Erik said, dry-mouthed. "I also saved your life."

"Yeah, so you could use me, lie to me about who you were and turn me against Ka-Zar to protect yourself. I haven't forgotten."

"You seem to have a habit of being rescued by supervillains for that purpose," Erik said. "Of course, _I_ only wished you to stop Ka-Zar from attacking me. Apocalypse wanted to make you a mindless killing machine, and it seems he was more successful at turning you than I."

The wings swept out again. Erik screamed as they caught his leg, gashing it before Ororo's winds threw Archangel across the room.

Archangel threw his hands out in a peace gesture at Ororo. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry, I shouldn't-- I shouldn't have lost control. I just..." He trailed off.

"Magnus is under my supervision now," Ororo said coldly. "Go. Leave here. Since you do not have the ability to control your emotions, and your killing wings, around him, you are not to approach him for any reason."

"And if I find him prowling around the house?"

"You tell me, or Cyclops. You stay away from him at all times." She knelt by Erik, inspecting the wound. "It's not pleasant, but we can heal this easily enough."

"Fine. That suits me. I don't want to be anywhere near him. But if I find out he's plotting to murder us all in our beds, don't expect me to stand around while you lecture me about self-control." Archangel turned on his heel and left.

"Magnus, it was terribly foolish of you to provoke him like that. Why did you?"

"Hypocrisy enrages me," Erik said, breathing hard. The wound was actually several short, deep, parallel slashes where each individual feather had cut, and it hurt like hell, far worse than being cut on his leg should hurt. "He hates me so terribly, yet he sold his soul to Apocalypse to get his wings back. At least all the crimes I have committed, I did believing I was doing the right thing. He thought nothing of the right thing, only the loss of his powers. Yet he claims to stand on higher moral ground than I?"

"He was badly hurt, and deeply depressed, and betrayed. We cannot hold his actions in such a moment of duress against him. Let me help you to the infirmary."

"Why? There is medical equipment on the Blackbird, and it's closer."

"Of course. You're right, that is a better choice."

She helped him to his feet. He swayed, feeling cold and dizzy. "I seem to recall his wings are poisoned?"

"There will be an antivenin for it on the Blackbird. Here, Magnus, let me--" and she lifted him. The dizziness and numbness in his leg was severe enough that he let her. Despite the fact that the last person to so carry him was the body snatcher, the panic didn't arise. He was surprised that she could, but then, his new body was a small woman, and Ororo was a tall woman, who exercised and built up her strength all the time.

This wasn't the way he'd wanted to come to the Blackbird, or use the equipment. Ororo injected his leg with the antivenin for Archangel's neurotoxin, explaining that he had received a very small dose of it and should be fine, and then ran the regenerator over his leg. He sat quietly, letting the medicine and the regeneration take effect.

"I must ask, though, Magnus... why _were_ you down here? I cannot imagine what you intended to find in this hangar."

"Medical equipment. On the Blackbird," he said, breathing raggedly as the medicine warred with Archangel's venom, giving him alternating sweats and chills. "Weren't you searching for the body snatcher?"

"I was. I could not find her, so I returned home. Jean advised me that Charles believes her to be incapacitated, and I am not so young as I once was, to go all night without sleep." She smiled.

"If I recall, you're not yet 30. You can start complaining about your age when you're 40, Ororo, not until."

"Oh, hush. I can complain about getting older if I wish. It's a woman's prerogative." She laid a wet paper towel on his forehead. "The side effects will soon pass."

"My thanks."

"You're welcome." She looked at him quizzically. "You said you wanted the medical equipment in the Blackbird, and I don't understand. We had you here in the Blackbird for some time today. If there were any medical treatments that _could_ be done here, why didn't you request they be done while you were here?"

"My reasons are personal, Ororo, and I don't wish to share them. I give you my word, all I wanted was medical equipment."

"But Hank would treat you without prejudice. You _do_ realize that, don't you?"

"I don't _care!_ My medical problems are not things I wish to share with the X-Men, any of the X-Men!"

Storm took a step back, as if taken aback by his unexpected vehemence. He put a hand to his forehead, taking the paper towel off. "My... apologies, Storm. I didn't mean to shout at you. I've just had a very trying day."

"Magnus..." She sat down next to him, and took his hand. He looked at her, surprised. "My friend. I am so sorry I didn't realize. All of us have behaved insensitively to you, haven't we?"

_She knows._ Once again he'd given himself away. He turned his head away, angrily. "There's nothing to be ashamed of, Ororo. I didn't want you to know. _Any_ of you."

"Still. I'm a woman, I should have guessed. You _told_ us of your enemy's proclivities, and yet it never occurred to me-- I never thought--"

"_Leave_ it, Ororo. I don't wish to discuss it."

She stood up. "I think I know what you want."

Storm opened the cabinet with the medical supplies, and took out the thin rod-shaped regenerator. "If you're satisfied that you know how to use this, I shall be checking to see if the refueling is done. Call me if you need any assistance." She handed him the device and swept out of the medical bay.

It was painful and incredibly difficult, far more than he'd thought it would be, to get the regenerator inside where it would do any good; his vaginal opening seemed far tighter than usual, or perhaps it was just that Davies had never minded tearing him and causing pain when she entered, whereas he was being much more careful. Inside, it burned, but he knew that to be a side effect of regeneration. It would burn, and then itch, and then all such sensations would pass and the tissue would be healed, scarred perhaps but healed. He concentrated on that, reminding himself that this would end the pain, that the thing inside him making its presence so palpably known was the healing device he'd risked his life against Archangel for, not another violation.

When it was done, he put his pants back on, washed off the regenerator carefully, and walked back out. He still felt a little wobbly, a combination of the venom/antivenin battle and the stress of regeneration. Ororo was sitting on the stairs down from the Blackbird's door. She turned as his footsteps sounded at the top of the stair. "Everything attended to?"

"Yes. My thanks."

"There's a matter we should discuss, that I hadn't thought of before." She flew up to the top of the stairs before he could descend any further. "Come inside with me?"

He saw no reason not to, and stepped inside. "What's the matter? Something to do with the body snatcher?"

"No, more to do with your health."

"I've dealt with it."

"There are things no regenerator we have can deal with." She looked at him intently. "Magnus, this is a difficult question to ask, but... is there any possibility you are pregnant?"

His face burned. Damn this body and how easily it showed humiliation. "What does it matter?"

"It matters a great deal. Firstly, none of our equipment could detect it; our health care is calibrated to deal with life-threatening injuries, not natural life processes. There are simpler tests, of course, but we'd actively have to get them for you. And if you are... it must change how we deal with the body snatcher. We could not simply hand her over to the authorities once she was back in her own body if that body was carrying your child."

"It wouldn't make any difference." Because he'd kill her once she was in her own body, and if this body was carrying a child of rape, better it die anyway. He didn't want to be tied by blood to such a monster. But he couldn't tell Ororo that. "The first switch was... traumatic. I suspect a pregnancy would miscarry, if she switched back into this body."

"Then it's even more important to know. Is there a chance of it?"

"I don't know."

"I understand you wouldn't know for certain, but I ask only if we should test you for it. If you've had a very recent menstrual cycle, perhaps we wouldn't need to worry about the possibility. But if the cycle has been delayed--"

"I was _married,_ Ororo. My wife bore me children. I know how female biology works; there's no need to condescend to me."

"So then when was this body's last menstrual cycle?"

"I _don't know!_ I've been bleeding sporadically for the past four weeks! How am I supposed to tell the difference between injury and nature in a body that isn't even mine?"

Her eyes widened, stricken. "Oh, Magnus... I am sorry."

"I said, leave it. It's over now."

"No, it means we don't know. And if there is a chance... there's another possibility as well, which the working equipment wouldn't reveal, that of disease. We don't know what might be present in this body, that she'd possibly have infected yours with."

"I'll deal with that when I get my body back."

"You can't wait that long to find out if you're pregnant, though. Not if switching might cause a miscarriage."

"Why should I care?"

"Why should you _care_ if there is a miscarriage? Am I mishearing you, Magnus? You've always been concerned with the innocent, particularly mutants, and you must realize that the child of two mutants would be far more likely to be one."

He took a deep breath. "If I am carrying that monster's child I will abort it. I did not consent to mix my genes with her and I don't want to see my line muddied with the genes of a rapist. I myself, terrorist and sometime madman, am bad enough."

"You speak as if you take eugenics seriously. But you know a child of rape is no more likely to be a rapist than anyone else. There's no gene for that. At least not for Lee Davies' particular brand of evil."

He didn't want to be having this discussion. He would not carry the child of rape in his body, like a parasite. Kill it before it had a chance to evolve into a child, before he grew emotionally attached and started thinking of it as an innocent victim. If it existed at all. "It's irrelevant, Ororo. I will get my body back, and then it won't matter."

"Would you not even wish to _know?_"

To know it wasn't true? To know he would never have to look back with the murder of his own child on his conscience, if something in his mind shifted years later? That would be helpful. It would not be at all helpful to confirm that there _was_ a pregnancy, but he'd be willing to take that risk to know for sure that there wasn't. "I believe they sell tests for that in drugstores now, don't they?"

"Yes, they do. But I have had another thought, given the risk of disease... and also, the fact that you simply can't be as familiar with a female body as you would be with a male."

"What thought was that?"

"Do you remember Dr. Wilder?"

He thought back and couldn't remember the name. "Give me a context. Who is he?"

"She. We X-Women have been going for our gynecological needs to Dr. Wilder, in New York City, since I joined this team. She's not a mutant, but she specializes in treating mutants and superhumans. I thought you might remember her since the female New Mutants also used her services."

"I left the New Mutants' medical care in Sharon's hands unless it was serious. I've never heard of this doctor."

"I'm not surprised." She laughed. "Firstly, you're a man, and secondly, you don't tend to notice humans who work for the _benefit_ of mutants. Dr. Wilder is very good. Because she specializes in superhumans and is familiar with the strangenesses of our lives, we could _tell_ her that you are a man in a woman's body, and she'd be able to advise you in everything you need to know to properly care for that body while you're in it."

"I doubt I need much information along those lines at all. I also doubt I need a gynecological exam, now that I've healed myself."

"She's very gentle. I imagine they examined you in the hospital, but Dr. Wilder has a great deal of empathy for her patients. She's never hurt me or the other women on the team. In fact, I had no idea that most women find such examinations unpleasant until Jean and I both had an appointment and Jean commented about much gentler Dr. Wilder is than most gynecologists, even the female ones."

He was tired, and he wanted to go back to his room. And a gynecologist might be able to help him find a reputable abortionist, if it came to that, without having to approach any of the X-Men with the problem. "Very well, then. Give me her number and I'll make an appointment."

"No need. I'll call tomorrow and arrange an appointment; I need an examination myself. There's a matter I wish confirmation on."

That was even better. He wouldn't have to do any of the work of setting up the appointment or arranging transportation to the city. Trains still unnerved him after all these years, and a cab ride, stuck in a car with a cabbie who wanted to make small talk for forty-five minutes or longer, would be hell right now, but without proper fake ID he couldn't rent a vehicle, and he doubted Charles would let him borrow the Rolls.

"Thank you. That will work well. Now, if you don't object, I'd like to return to bed; if we spend tomorrow searching for the body snatcher, I'll need to get up early and there'll be much to do."

"Of course. Shall I walk with you to your room?"

He thought of Archangel. "I wouldn't object."

* * *

This time, with Storm as an escort, he returned to his room via the main routes through the house. It was 1 am by the clock in the X-Men's main hallway. Use of the regenerator had as a side effect made him irresistibly sleepy, so he had no trouble falling asleep.

Something woke him, some indefinable sense of horror. It was too quiet, even in a house that should be full of silent sleeping people. Erik's heart pounded as he lay in bed, terrified of getting up, terrified of what he might find out of this room. But if there was a danger, it would find him even if he hid in his room. He forced himself out of bed, and went to the door to the room, where he hesitated. Surely it was nothing. He'd look foolish if he left his room for some vague fear he couldn't even define.

Besides, he was too frightened to open the door.

Resolutely he opened it and walked through. The halls were silent, even more so than they'd been when he'd been prowling through them before, but he couldn't say exactly _how_ they were silent. They'd been quiet before; he couldn't quite identify what sounds there had been before that there weren't now. It was as if he were walking through a sonic muffle zone. Every step made his heart beat faster, every corner he turned startled him, and the lack of any horrors on the other side of the corridor didn't reassure him at all, somehow. _Something_ horrible had happened. He knew it, and didn't know how he knew, but he had to find out.

The hallways went on forever, and at no point did he find any sign of life at all. It was as if he were completely abandoned in the house. But that by itself was no reason for terror; the X-Men could have been called away to the Shi'ar Empire or something in the middle of the night, that was nothing new. Yet the sense of fear mounted. By the time he actually reached the stairs, he was almost too frightened to head down them. They were too open, too wide. Anything could see him.

No. That was cowardice, and he had to know. Clinging to the wall, knees weak from fear, he descended the stairs to the X-Men's living room. Still no sign of anyone. That was normal, of course, at this hour. But he had to know. He went to the front door and opened it.

Outside, the moonlight shone down on the grassy field in front of Xavier's mansion, the smooth surface of the lawn marred by dark lumpy shapes sprawled all over it. His vision adjusted to the moonlight, and he recognized the nearer of the dark lumpy shapes. There was Rogue, sprawled with Wolverine's adamantium blade in her throat. Wolverine himself lay next to her, skull deformed and crushed into a tiny round pinhead, his mouth wide open and full of spilling gray matter. Storm was pinned to the ground like a bug by a metal I-beam. The remnants of his magnetic senses told him that there was a power field over the entire front lawn, that the metal that had killed all the X-Men was all magnetized.

Erik slammed the door and ran desperately for his room. He could hear the door smash down behind him, could hear her laughing. "Thought you could get away, sweetie? I'll kill anyone who tries to protect you, I told you that."

No. There had to be a way. He'd get to his room where Storm had given him the mutant neutralizer gun that had taken her powers, long ago. She was Forge's lover and she'd given it to him to protect himself from the body snatcher, he remembered that now. He ran with hysterical speed, lungs burning, heart slamming, his feet breaking and bleeding on the broken glass strewn throughout Xavier's destroyed mansion, but he had to get to his room, get to the gun and stop her. She'd killed all the X-Men and he was next. He could still hear her laughing, smashing walls in with bolts of power. All the doors he slammed behind him couldn't stop her. He reached his room and dove for the bed, where the gun should be underneath.

It wasn't there.

Now he remembered. Storm hadn't given him anything. Why had he thought she had?

And then the body snatcher was there, still laughing. She loomed over him, crackling with power. He tried to get to his feet, to run, but before he could even stand up she was on him, grabbing him and lifting him with one power-enhanced hand, and flinging him on the bed.

"I told you not to run away," she said, an iron club with spikes on it floating behind her head. "You're _mine._" Her hand was on his throat, pinning him to the bed. "Guess I'd better make sure you can't run this time."

He screamed, "_NO!!!_" but it didn't stop her. The iron club swung through the air and landed with full force on his legs, smashing them, as she laughed.

* * *

Erik opened his eyes, trembling violently.

Not real. It was a dream. Not real.

He stared at the ceiling for several long minutes, willing his pounding heart to slow, his ragged breathing to even out. He was ice cold, the sweat of the dream evaporating in the coolness of the room without so much as a blanket to block it. The need to get up, to verify for himself that the X-Men were in fact quite well and it had been only a dream, warred with the equally irrational terror that they weren't, in fact, all right, and that getting up and leaving his room might expose him to whatever was out there. She had attacked Westchester. She'd been inside Charles Xavier's body. She knew where the mansion was. He tried to convince himself that his fears were ridiculous-- the X-Men had shown themselves more than capable of defeating _him,_ and he had far more experience in combat and skill with the powers than the body snatcher had-- but that was a rational, daylight belief, and this was a dark bedroom after a nightmare.

There was a knock at the door. Simultaneously, before he had a chance to feel more than the first twinge of startled terror, Charles' mind helloed him, a touch so quick and light it could serve only to alert him to Charles' presence, not carry any information back to Charles.

Erik swung off the bed and stumbled to the door, opening it to face Charles. "What is it?"

"I couldn't sleep," Charles said. "Probably due to the rest Hank enforced on me earlier today-- there's only so much sleeping I can do, and I seem to have run out. And I'd gotten the impression you suffered the same affliction, so I wondered if you might like to join me downstairs for a drink."

"Please do not patronize me, Charles," Erik said stiffly. "You didn't get the impression I wasn't sleeping; you overheard me having a nightmare."

"Well, yes. You were broadcasting."

Erik felt even colder than the room and the sweat warranted. "_Broadcasting?_ Did Jean and Elizabeth--"

"They're asleep." At Erik's look, Charles smiled wryly. "Yes, I did have something to do with that. I suspect you would have woken them if I hadn't been already awake and able to compensate-- I blocked you from them, though that ruined any hope I might have had of blocking you out myself. I've rarely seen you broadcast with such power, Erik; you should learn to harness that in your waking life."

He was never that frightened in his waking life. Erik didn't point that out. "It doesn't do much good to salvage my dignity if you must brag about doing it, Charles."

"You did ask."

"I did not."

"You most certainly did. I don't need to read beneath your shields to interpret that particular facial expression."

Erik sighed. He was irritated, but at the same time, it was pleasant to see Charles behave like his usual, irritating, entirely-too-willing-to-argue self rather than the Charles of before, who had walked on eggshells around him. "I need to change clothes."

"Go ahead, and meet me downstairs in the kitchen. I'm planning to try hot chocolate with rum. Henry swears by it, though I suspect if he knew I was awake and drinking he'd swear rather more profanely."

"I'll refrain from telling him."

* * *

It took Erik a good ten minutes to find something to wear. Rogue had brought up a box of clothing that included women's and girls' things previous female X'ers and New Mutants had left behind. Unfortunately, not one of them had anything remotely approximating his body type. Women of the X were generally slender and busty, and the New Mutants had been children, so even though several had actually been taller than he was now the hips and breasts of their clothing didn't accommodate this form. Besides, he was fat. Well, all right, by the standards of his childhood he'd merely have been seen as healthy and well-fed, let alone the standards of Auschwitz, but he had acquired different standards in the forty-odd years intervening, and measuring by the average superheroine he was short and plump. Besides, the women of the X liked to wear skintight clothing that showed off their magnificent, well-toned physiques... since, to be honest, most male superhumans and mutants he knew liked to do the same thing if they had the bodies for it, including himself, he could hardly condemn them, but it made it much harder to fulfill his desire to look completely asexual. Eventually he put on a pair of jeans that were hippy enough but far too long, rolled up the pant legs just barely enough to not step on them, put on a turtleneck of Kitty Pryde's and a large sweater, found a pair of gloves Rogue must have discarded, and brushed his hair down to cover his ears and neck as thoroughly as he could. What he really wanted was a helmet and a cloak, but that was likely overkill.

Charles was waiting for him in the kitchen with an extra cup. "Try this. It's delicious."

"I don't like chocolate."

"I can't very well make you coffee at this hour."

"Just pour me a vodka."

"Women have a lower alcohol tolerance than men, and you've got much less mass now into the bargain. I'd stay with the weak drinks if I were you."

"You're not me. Where do you keep the liquor?"

"You have a briefing tomorrow."

"So do you."

"And, you see _me_ sedately drinking a mixture of rum and chocolate. Besides, I think you could use a warm drink."

"You're quite right. Do you have any rice wine?"

"I didn't know you drank sake."

"I don't as a general rule, but unlike vodka, it's not disgusting when heated."

"Have the chocolate, Magnus. I really shouldn't be drinking two of them, and I know you wouldn't want it to go to waste."

"You're blackmailing me with my neuroses again. Give me the damned hot chocolate so you will shut up and give me some peace."

"Here."

"Now, where's the vodka?"

Charles sighed. "In the liquor cabinet, where else?"

"Which you have moved where? It used to be in your office."

"There still is one in my office, but now it has a Shi'ar telepathic lock on it. After I came home to find that _someone_ had drunk everything I had, I took some precautions. You wouldn't happen to know anything about that, would you?"

"There were still a few bottles left when the New Mutants and I parted company. Is there another cabinet, which would be implied by your statement that there is 'one' in your office?"

"If I didn't know better, old friend, I'd swear you have a drinking problem."

"I have a very dire drinking problem, Charles. I am trapped in a woman's body, while a madwoman roams free murdering innocents with my own, and my old friend is serving me little boy's drinks."

"Very funny. I'm glad to see your ordeal hasn't impaired your sense of humor." Charles' garish yellow chair floated over to the cabinet next to the refrigerator, which he pulled open and extracted a bottle of vodka from within. "Here. Happier?"

"Much." He poured a shot of the vodka into the hot chocolate and sipped at the warm liquid, frowning slightly at the overly sweet taste. The trouble was, as Charles knew, he couldn't bear wasting food, and his recent capture had only exacerbated it.

"So, tell me, Charles. What did happen today with the body snatcher? She told me she couldn't take anyone's body if she wasn't in her own."

"Yes, that's consistent with her beliefs. Lee Davies has never had any formal training in the use of her powers, though, so it's not surprising that she doesn't know the full extent of them herself." Charles sipped his own hot chocolate. "After I talked to you on the phone, I immediately started searching for Davies, and made contact almost immediately-- she's a powerful mutant, both in her own right and most especially with your powers-- and I attempted to immobilize her telepathically. This turned out to be a mistake."

"If she is such a powerful mutant as you say, why did you never notice her before?"

"There are getting to be more and more mutants, Magnus. Davies is of an age with my first X-Men; Cerebro wasn't as sophisticated then, and I had many responsibilities, so I would easily have missed her first manifestation, and if you don't get a mutant at first manifestation then you have to depend on their power levels to spike sometime in their post-manifestation lives. Davies used her power relatively rarely, I think; like Rogue's, it's simply not the sort of power you _can_ use often. I could find her if I knew specifically to look for, but without that information, it's simply random chance as to whether I can get a reading for any given mutant or not. Did you think I had a map of all of them?"

"I know you have an extensive database of mutants who've refused your offer to come to the school, or who you deemed unsuitable for the X-Men to begin with."

"Yes. But it doesn't begin to cover them all. I didn't even know about the Morlocks until the X-Men's first encounter with them, and they had been living for at least twenty years practically under our feet. Cerebro's a useful tool, but it's not omniscient."

"Very well then. You say attacking her telepathically was a mistake. What happened?"

"To be honest, I've tried to reconstruct it and I'm still not sure. She switched bodies with me, but I am not sure _how_\-- it happened with such unbelievable speed I had no chance to resist. I suspect her power works like Rogue's-- Rogue is an entity of negative psionic force, with such phenomenal power that very, very few have the ability to resist her pull. Such a mind would instantly implode on itself, absorbing its surroundings and collapsing under the weight, if it were telepathically open-- that is, if like myself and other telepaths it had the ability to forge telepathic links of its own. For survival, Rogue can _only_ use her psionic powers when touching a person-- that forges the link. I think Davies' power is fundamentally very similar. Her psionic ability, like Rogue's, depends on touch for the most part because it lacks the ability to forge a link without touch. But if a foreign telepath forges the link, her power can work unfettered. With Rogue, there's always been the difficulty in trying to work with her powers that, even without the mental static from Carol Danvers, any attempt to directly enter her mind runs the risk of triggering her power and being sucked in. Davies, I think, can do it deliberately. She somehow knew-- perhaps she has a sense of minds when they are vulnerable to her-- that she could swap with me, and she did it."

"And so you were left powerless? In my body, or where?"

"No, I wasn't powerless. I was extremely ill-- for quite some time, I was so badly disoriented with nausea and migraine that it was all I could do to muster the strength to strike back. But I never lost my powers. Apparently in Davies' specific type of body snatching, telepathic powers remain with the mind-- which makes sense, because otherwise she'd lose her own psionic powers when she switches, and her victim would gain them. You don't have her powers, I presume."

"If I do, I haven't found the way to activate them. Believe me, I have tried."

"It makes sense. Her body has the ability to forge the channel-- that's a more or less physical power, not psionic. But without the psionic ability that goes with it, the forging of the channel means nothing. If you weren't so blocked, you might be able to use your _own_ psionic abilities in that body, but they wouldn't be Davies'-- you'd be a touch-telepath, not a body thief."

"I am still utterly unconvinced that I am a telepath of any stripe, Charles. Everything I've done can be explained by my control of electromagnetism in the brain."

"Except for your mindshields, because you have them still at full strength."

"You've mentioned that the occasional human has such shields."

"I mentioned that of Madelyne Pryor, who turned out to be a clone of Jean."

Erik blinked. "So that's why there was such a strong resemblance. Whatever happened to her?"

"She went mad, tried to enable demons to conquer New York--"

"_She_ was behind that? I thought that was Illyana's fault."

"No, it was Madelyne. Which you might have known if you had been in the slightest involved in the lives of the students I entrusted to you, at that point--"

"A bit difficult, when they spent all their time running off and trying to get themselves killed!"

"And your ambitions in the Hellfire Club had nothing to do with it?"

"I was trying to safeguard their future. Illyana refused to have dealings with me; she started routinely teleporting away rather than talk to me. I thought it was merely her grief over her brother-- who, at the time, we all thought dead along with the rest of the X-Men; then when the demons attacked New York I thought she was the reason, since they were techno-organic, like the demons of her Limbo. Why are you bringing this up now anyway?"

"Perhaps I shouldn't." Charles stared down at his drink. "But... I feel I have the right to an explanation, and I don't think I've ever gotten one from you. I left you with healthy, obedient students. I left you as a practicing member of the X-Men, who had actually agreed to stand trial for his crimes. And when I came back... my students were scattered to the winds, three of them were dead, several had turned terrorist, and _you_ were not only known for a villain again, but when we first encountered each other, you brutally attacked me and Moira on the word of a man you'd only just met, and behaved for all the world as if _you_ were the one betrayed by _me,_ not the other way around."

"And what would you call it but betrayal, to have your mind and soul toyed with when you were helpless by one you trusted?"

"I'd call it old history, among other things. Whatever Moira did or didn't do to you, it obviously didn't take."

"How am I to know that? How can I know that I am myself, that I have had any free will since the moment I awakened in her laboratories?"

"Oh, for God's sake, Magnus. If Moira had taken away your free will, I'm sure she would not have allowed you to attack my students, let Proteus run loose, then attack my students _again,_ kidnap and torture them because _you_ were humiliated by Mutant Alpha, leave them in a _volcano_ to die, and then later come back and try to conquer the world... given your actions after you were re-aged, how can you possibly believe Moira had a damned thing to do with _any_ of your decisions? And why on Earth did you assume _I_ had anything to do with it?"

"Moira is human. You're a telepath. I find it hard to believe that Moira could keep secrets from you."

"Moira is my ex-girlfriend. I avoid reading her mind as much as possible. Besides, she was a continent away from me for the most part, and besides _that,_ whenever I would come to check on your progress you would wail hysterically. You were terrified of me, and I didn't want to inflict that on you, so I stayed away." His eyes bored into Erik's. "Besides. Do you seriously think that if I had decided to modify your mind, I would work on you at the _genetic_ level? The genetic level isn't where your problems are, whatever Moira thinks. If I _had_ decided to modify your mind, you would currently be a happy American Jew who believes the Holocaust is a horrifying historical event that matters to him culturally but not personally. I would not have attempted to alter your physical body, Magnus. That's not what I do. I'd have erased your memories and implanted consistent false ones-- or, given that you were an infant and would be raised with new memories, more realistically I'd simply have completely erased you, and there'd have been no Magneto for Davan Shakari to resurrect."

"You are no God, Charles. You would have had no right."

"Why do you think we're having this conversation? I seriously considered erasing you, you know, for your own good. You had the mind of a six-month-old and the memories of an adult man who'd been through unimaginable horror, and you had no defenses, no way to protect yourself from the trauma. Moira actually did ask me to erase you, because she was convinced you'd die. You weren't feeding properly, you were crying constantly, you wouldn't sleep, and your health suffered terribly. The other infants, the rest of the Brotherhood, seemed happy and content-- only you were tormented. And I rejected her request, in the end, because I'm not God, and I had no right. I put a state-dependent block on the memories so your infant mind couldn't access them any longer-- you'd have gotten your memories back as an adult, slowly, at a rate you could handle and with the feeling that they happened in a past life, because you'd have established so many more powerful childhood memories by that time, if Shakari hadn't re-aged you-- and I did that much only because it was endangering your health. And I truly resented that you immediately jumped to the conclusion that I _would_ do such a thing to you, both that I would commit such a moral transgression-- when I was presented with the opportunity to and I _rejected_ it, even though it would have been safer for the world if I had-- and that I would do so by playing with your genetic code. And that _anyone_ would try to _brainwash_ you, or change your outlook on life, by modifying your genetic code. Moira was trying to cure what she thought was a biologically based insanity-- to _restore_ your free will, not to take it. And you tortured her for it, and you tortured me, and this after you betrayed me by abandoning my students and my dream. I think I have the right to be angry."

"Then why have you taken me in? If you are so enraged at my crimes, why play at being my friend?"

"I _am_ your friend, you idiot. I saw your madness suck you in and there was nothing I could do about it-- I tried, and you attacked me, and I thought I'd lost one of my best friends forever. I had to demonize you, in my own mind and to my students, because I knew there was next to nothing of my friend Magnus left in mad Magneto. And then you recovered, years later. You became the man I remembered again, and I realized I'd do anything in my power to keep you from falling again."

"Then why did you swear me to a task you knew I'd fail?"

"I knew no such thing. When you weren't mad, you had some of the fiercest paternal instincts I'd ever seen-- I was sure you would protect the children, at any cost. There was no reason for me to believe you'd fail."

"Except that I have driven away my own children--"

"--when you were insane. I don't think that would have happened otherwise."

"And, Charles, what you fail to understand is that I take 'at any cost' seriously, and you don't. And you had already trained these children not to take it seriously. I _wanted_ to protect them at any cost. But the cost ended up being your Dream-- which, by the way, still doesn't work, and I now have the absolute authority to say so, because I have tried it-- and they wouldn't accept that. They considered it more important to be heroes than to follow my directives, and live. And I couldn't convince them otherwise, no matter how I tried. In the end, the best I could do for them was to drive them away, so I could maneuver within the Hellfire Club to try to ensure the safety of all mutants without risking them specifically to Frost's machinations and so that they wouldn't be tainted by association with me. Two of them were already dead by that time, and I hadn't had the power to save either of them-- both chose heroic self-sacrifice over life, and I wasn't there to stop it, because the New Mutants never asked for my help, never involved me in their lives, never seemed to think I _could_ be a source of valuable advice outside of combat training. Their lives revolved around sneaking out behind my back, even after one of their number was dead! There was nothing I could do, Charles, _nothing._ And in the end, I was right the first time. I should have refused you, I should have run away. The whole thing was absolute nonsense-- I have no aptitude for dealing with teenagers. Why you chose me and not Scott Summers, I'll never know."

"Scott had quit the X-Men."

"He came back, just long enough to challenge Storm for leadership, and lose. Which led to him somehow deciding to join the rest of his fellow original students in inflaming the public opinion against mutants to the point where a teenage boy killed himself, and he's only the one I knew about-- I don't doubt there were others."

"He and the others were led astray by Cameron Hodge. Their heart was in the right place; they were simply misguided. As for me choosing Scott as headmaster... Scott was going to be a father. He had told me he was permanently retired, that all he wanted was a quiet normal life with Madelyne. I couldn't, in the light of that, drag him back in." Charles shook his head. "It was all a mistake. A series of colossal mistakes on all of our parts. Storm should never have decided to let you and the New Mutants think the X-Men dead. I should have returned to Earth when I had the chance, and not trusted that you could safely handle matters. But I don't know how any of it could have been done differently. We all made the best choices we could, given the facts we had at the time."

"As did I, Charles. I never meant to fail your students-- I never meant to let any of them die. I tried my best-- God knows I tried-- but it wasn't enough." Good God, was he going to weep now? He took a deep drink of the vodka-laced hot chocolate, now cold chocolate, intending it to fortify his defenses against the encroaching tears.

"I'm sorry," Charles said. "I shouldn't have brought up all these old resentments at a time like this. I-- I should know you tried--"

"But you don't," Erik said harshly, " because it wasn't good enough. The world does not care about tried, Charles; it cares about what was actually done. And what I actually did was worse than useless. If I had run off to my tropical island to eat grapes and dally with Lee, I would have done less damage to those children than what I did by caring and _trying_." He was tottering on the edge, exhausted and probably a little too drunk. "And I blamed you for pushing me into a position where I had to try to be you, because I am not you, I could never _be_ you, and I hated you for every failure I made, because you'd been dying and you put me in a box and I couldn't escape your dying wishes, and the truth is it should have been myself I hated all along. My failure. My stupidity, in following the wishes of a man I thought dead rather than doing what _I_ knew to be right. My insecurity, after having my sense of what was right for me to do totally upended. I was in pieces, a lost man desperately trying to pretend he still had some bearings, some dignity, and if anyone had known how totally incompetent I felt, perhaps they could have given me the help I needed to succeed. But Magneto cannot be incompetent, Magneto cannot be undignified. I couldn't beg. And so I failed the greatest trust I'd ever been given, because my pride-- my pride--"

He threw himself against the refrigerator, pressing against comforting cold metal rather than let Charles see his face crumpling, the tears welling in his eyes. Goddamn Charles. Of course he didn't have the emotional wherewithal to handle accusations over his greatest failure at 4 in the morning the night after he'd been rescued from a month of rape and torture. Damn himself, too, for drinking so much. He'd wanted the vodka to help him sleep, but he hadn't expected Charles to start attacking him.

"I'm sorry," Charles said. "I'm so sorry, my friend. For bringing this up, for putting you in that position, for everything." He could hear Charles' voice suspiciously close to breaking as well. That was all he needed. "We had no chance to talk, when you attacked, when you thought I betrayed you-- I was so angry at you, over everything, and then I thought-- I thought you were dead. I thought we'd never have a chance to try to resolve anything ever again, and then you turned out to be alive--"

His Acolytes. In the horror of the past month, he had almost managed to put them out of his head, the mangled bloody corpse of Chrome pulped to bits by the crash-landing, the others frozen forever as statues with Chrome lost to restore them, dead, all of those who'd trusted him, dead--

"Don't," Erik strangled out, "don't," and then he was on the floor, doubled over with agony. Alive, when those who'd trusted him were dead. Doug, Illyana, Warlock. Anne-Marie, Delgado, Velasquez, Chrome. Anya. Peter. Mother, Father, Marya. The victims of the body snatcher. The ones he'd taken the bags from, he'd guided to the showers, he'd carried dead to the furnaces. Alive, surrounded by death, and even more powerless to stop it than usual.

He sobbed hysterically on the floor of Charles' kitchen, trying and utterly failing to get control of himself, the blackness sweeping over him in waves. Distantly he was aware of Charles' hand on his back, stroking it, of Charles' voice in the distance saying he was sorry. Under other circumstances the touch might have made him go rigid with fear; now he simply didn't care. The blackness was too huge, too overwhelming, to feel anything else.

The truth was, his problems had started long before Lisa Davies had stolen his body. It felt like he'd been on a downward spiral since Douglas' death, at least. But then, could you even call it a downward spiral when it was simply your life resetting to normal, free of the aberration of happiness and a feeling of accomplishment? His life consisted of a series of spectacular failures, punctuated by occasional brief moments that lulled him into thinking he might succeed, might do something with his life that didn't make matters worse, might stave off the inevitable darkness. And then the smashing of the hope produced far more pain than if he had never hoped in the first place. He had been completely focused, for the past month, on getting free and getting his body back, and now Charles' words reminded him that even when he got his body back, there was still no escaping the fact that his life was spiraling down into the darkness again, and had been for some time, and there was no way out.

No. No, he rejected that. He _had_ had a plan, before Davies had taken him down. He had a specific goal that he was working toward, an iteration of what he'd tried before with the bugs worked out this time. All he had to do was get his body back and put his plan back into motion. He had failed before, again and again, and some of those failures had left innocents dead, and some of those innocents had been the children he'd sworn to protect. No matter. If he let his failures destroy him, however grievous they were, he would never be able to atone for them by succeeding, never be able to make them worth the sacrifice.

His Acolytes had died for a cause. He had to make their deaths mean something by continuing to fight for that cause. And as soon as he had his body back, he would continue the fight. No matter how many died. It had to be worth something, in the end, or it never would have meant anything.

There was a glass of water by his head. "Here," Charles said. "It'll help."

He took the water and drank it, gulping rapidly at first, then slowing as he got control. Slowly he got to his feet. "I... apologize for that," he said, getting himself under control. "I fear you were right; this body's alcohol tolerance is simply not what my own's would be, and I am quite tired."

"No apologies needed. You've been under tremendous stress lately. I'm sorry I pushed you; I meant for us simply to talk, tonight, and instead I seem to have created a problem for you."

"It's all right," he said tiredly, setting the glass down on the counter. "Certain things... needed to be said, between us." He looked at Charles. "And I am not sorry for what I did to Moira, because performing genetic manipulation on a child with no family to consent for him is an abomination, whatever her goals may have been. But I am sorry for bringing you into it."

Charles sighed. "I think you have a lot more than that to apologize for, but I'll take what you can give right now. But we are going to have to continue this discussion when you're stronger. I'm willing to forgive a great deal, but brutally attacking a friend of mine, a human with no powers to protect herself, for having the temerity to try to keep you from going insane is something I'll have to work very hard at forgiving, you understand. But we don't have to go into it now."

"Some other time, then." They had pushed a great deal under the rug when he and Charles had worked to rekindle their friendship, the first time. Erik had to admit that a lot of what had been pushed aside and never dealt with had been his own crimes and misdeeds; Charles simply didn't have as many things to atone for, and they both had recognized this, and Charles had granted him a pass on a lot of it because Charles thought it was more important to reconcile than to rehash old grievances. Perhaps Charles had changed, or, plausibly, simply wasn't willing to grant him blanket absolution for recent offenses. To be honest, he could never understand why Charles was as forgiving as he was; had someone done to Erik the things he as Magneto had done to Charles, he could never have forgiven. He did owe Charles an explanation, at least. But it would be impossible to make it clear to Charles how absolutely disgusting and horrifying what Moira had tried was while he was still so raw and emotionally uncontrolled. They would have this discussion when Erik was powerful again, and maybe his grim prediction that the next time they met it would be as earnest enemies would not have to come to pass. If he could make Charles see why his plans _must_ be carried out for the sake of mutantkind... if he could earn Charles back as an ally, or even simply get Charles to agree not to get in his way... he couldn't have expected Charles to do such a thing when he wanted to take over the world, but that wasn't what he wanted anymore. All he wanted to create was a safe sanctuary for mutants. Surely Charles couldn't object to that, if he truly understood the need.

"If we have a briefing tomorrow, then I should go back to bed. I am very tired."

"Of course, Magnus. I should do the same myself, before Hank has my head."

The last and final time he returned to bed, his mood recovering from black despair only by sheer force of will, he was sufficiently tired and sufficiently affected by the vodka that he was finally able to stay asleep all the rest of the night.

* * *

He was facing all of the X-Men again today. Not in combat, but in some ways worse-- he would be talking to them of his experiences of the past month, speaking of his weaknesses. He needed armor.

Clean underwear. He wanted boxers, but apparently all they made for women was briefs-- he'd live. Clean socks, the thick athletic kind. Instead of the shapeless, overlarge boots he'd been issued at the police station, he had a pair of slightly-too-large purple short boots with floppy tops that folded down which had once belonged to Psylocke in her old body-- he'd have to hit the X-Men's costume machine to get footgear that actually fit, but for now these would do. A clean sports bra that belonged to someone bustier but thinner than he was, which pretty much covered every woman who'd ever been an X-Man. The jeans from last night, a clean white turtleneck, an overlarge black sweater he could wear as if it were almost a cloak. He brushed his hair-- fine mousy brown strands, they served only to soften and weaken him, not like his own rich thick mane-- and pulled it back into a severe ponytail. For a few moments he struggled with trying to make it into a bun, but he had no idea how to do such a thing, so he settled for the ponytail, and for folding the collar of the turtleneck up so it completely covered his neck, exposing none of his skin.

It wasn't steel mail, but it would do for now. He looked at himself in the mirror and still couldn't see himself. There was a frightened young woman with wide doe eyes and a soft, deceptively gentle face looking back at him. Erik hardened his expression, and still couldn't manage to look much more sophisticated or in control than Kitty Pryde, despite being physiologically about ten years older than she was. There was nothing he could do about it. For a fleeting moment, he wished he knew how to apply makeup-- women knew how to make themselves look older, stronger, tougher, a talent he'd never needed because his own body had always had plenty of those qualities. If he couldn't look like Magneto he'd at least like to look like a mature, powerful businesswoman. But he wouldn't have the body long enough to need to know such things. And the X-Men would look beyond appearances to see him as he truly was. He hoped.

* * *

As it was, he was one of the first there-- only Cyclops, Jean and Bishop had already arrived. Cyclops, who probably _had_ been the first one there, nodded at him. "Magneto. What's your opinion on recruiting Polaris to help find the body snatcher?"

"My opinion? Quicksilver is on Polaris' team, is he not? Is there a way to bring her in without notifying him of the situation?"

"Is there a good reason not to tell him?"

"How pleased would you be at the thought of telling Corsair you have been turned into a woman, Cyclops?"

"Corsair's my father. Quicksilver's your son. It's not the same thing."

"That makes it infinitely worse, trust me. I have no reasons for wanting to keep Polaris out aside from my entirely personal desire not to involve Quicksilver; she certainly has the abilities needed to find the body snatcher and probably could defeat her in single combat. The body snatcher's more powerful but has far less training than Polaris... although she's willing to kill, and as one of Xavier's trainees, I imagine Polaris is not. She would need backup. Not Havok, his ionic discharges are useless against me."

"She'd have the X-Men. I wouldn't involve the rest of X-Factor if I can help it-- Lorna's an old friend and for all intents and purposes my sister-in-law, so I can probably bring her in to this privately without having her tell Val Cooper what's going on. Or Quicksilver, though I personally am much more concerned with keeping the government from finding out than keeping your son out of it."

"Why are we so concerned with keeping the government out of this?" Bishop asked. "The X-Men have an outlaw status, but since we're discussing liaising with X-Factor, not an entity such as SHIELD, is that really a concern?"

"The concern is, I don't want to let government agencies know there's a powerful mutant serial killer out there. Even if they kept it secret-- which they probably wouldn't-- it doesn't help our cause if the government thinks of mutants as primarily criminals and deviants. And every time a new mutant supercriminal turns up, it reinforces their beliefs and that of the general public. Well, learning about a mutant serial killer who likes to rape and murder powerful men is likely to bring out a _severe_ overreaction against mutants in general-- a lot of the guys in power are in the body snatcher's target group, and spooking them is not a good idea for mutantkind in general."

Charles entered the room, arguing with Henry McCoy about his health again, accompanied by Storm, Rogue and Gambit. "...perfectly fine today," he was saying. "In fact, as soon as we finish here, I intend to try to repair Cerebro enough to locate the body snatcher."

"Given what happened last time, I would have to call that a singularly bad idea, Charles," Hank said. "We certainly don't need her zipping about in your body again."

"Since she couldn't acquire my telepathic powers, I strongly doubt she'd wish to. Besides, I don't intend to attack her, just locate her."

Storm walked over to Erik. "Magnus, I have made an appointment for 12 o'clock today. If our work against the body snatcher demands it, we will postpone, but from what Charles has said it seems likely that she may be disabled for a while."

"How does he know?"

"He has a lengthy report to make; I've heard some of the highlights, but I will rely on him to tell the full story."

"How're you feelin' this mornin', sugar?" Rogue asked.

"As well as can be expected. Why is there no coffee in this briefing room?"

"Dere's a coffee maker right there," Gambit said. "What, de Master of Magnetism can't operate a coffeemaker by himself wit'out help from his powers?"

Erik scowled. "I hadn't actually seen the coffee maker until you so graciously pointed it out," he snapped. "Besides, I am hardly the X-Men's amanuensis, to be making coffee for the lot of you."

"Amanuensises no longer do that sort of thing," the Beast said. "Instead, as a general rule, they type up cheery little notes reminding everyone that they are not our mothers and will not make our coffee for us, and tape them to the coffee maker."

"Pardon mah stupidity, but what the heck is an amanuensis?"

"A secretary," Charles said. "Good morning, Wolverine, Colossus."

The big Russian hadn't yet seen Erik's new form. Erik saw his eyes go wide with shock, and felt irrationally angry. Of course Peter was going to be shocked. It was a natural reason. No good reason to want to fling him into orbit.

"Ah-- Magneto," Peter said, not hiding his shock well at all. "Ah, how are you feeling this morning?"

_Rather less like killing all of you than I did yesterday._ "Reasonably well. I would like to get on with this briefing, and I would like some coffee. Is anyone going to bother making some, or do all your mutant powers make you immune to caffeine?"

"Ah'll do it," Rogue said. "Ah ain't right in the morning without at least two cups mahself. Cyke, next time you call an early morning briefin', can't you remember to make some coffee?"

"We did. Then we drank it all," Jean said. "You need to get up earlier to get to the first batch."

"Fortunately," Psylocke said from the door, "we've already had ours." She walked in with Archangel, who was studiously _not_ looking at Erik, and Iceman, who was carrying a bowl of cold cereal and eating it as he walked.

"Good, everyone's here," Charles said. "Let's begin."

Cyclops nodded. "Firstly, Magneto. Can you tell us about your escape yesterday? You mentioned that you thought she'd be disabled. We need to know what time you escaped and when, in your opinion, she was most likely to have started reacting to that escape."

"I was in the kitchen, and I found a newspaper article talking about her activities as the Electrokiller," Erik said. "She had effectively prevented me from escaping by raping and murdering a young man in front of me, and threatening that she would do it again if I attempted escape again."

"Why was she so concerned with your escape? Is there something she fears you can do?" Cyclops asked.

He was not going to tell the X-Men what use he'd been to Lisa Davies-- Xavier, Storm and Jean already knew, and that couldn't be helped, but he'd be damned if he let the others know. "Because she needs to keep her physical body under her control. According to what she told me, she can switch with anyone she touches with this body," pointing at himself. "Once she's in a target body, however, she can only switch back to this one. So if I'm under her control I'm her backup in the case that someone successfully injures my body severely or fatally; she can switch back to this one and leave my body to die. If I'm free of her, she has no control-- if she needs to switch back to this body, she'd be in the midst of enemies with little way out."

"Do you have the ability to use her body-switching power?"

He gave Cyclops a disgusted look. "If I did, would I be here before you?"

"Good point. All right, she'd told you she was going to kill people if you ran away. And you read about the Electrokiller in the newspaper, so I assume you realized at that point she was killing people anyway. How could you be sure it was her?"

"The modus operandi. Lisa Davies hates men. She believes us to be beings of power who need to be humbled somehow. When I realized someone was raping and then electrocuting men, I knew it had to be her. She'd been going out in the evenings a great deal and would return with newspapers from all up and down the Northeast Coast of the United States. The likelihood of anyone else traveling up and down the coast and murdering men that way was vanishingly small. So I decided I would escape. I struck her in the head with a glass bottle and then beat her senseless with a cutting board, and when she was fully unconscious I gashed her ankles so she would lose a great deal of blood when she attempted to walk. Then I ran into the woods, where eventually I made my way to the highway and called Charles."

"Whoa." Iceman stared at him. "You beat her up with a glass bottle and a cutting board? That's unreal."

"I told you. My lack of powers does not mean a complete lack of resources. I know the vulnerabilities of her powers better than anyone, and she was more interested in trying to humiliate me by making me a menial kitchen servant than she was in keeping me away from weapons made of wood and glass. If she hadn't threatened to kill mutants, or if I'd been willing to kill my own body to escape, she could never have held me so long."

"In your opinion, does she have any true combat experience whatsoever?" Bishop asked.

"In my opinion, no. She has experience holding helpless people captive; she does not expect anyone to resist, certainly not to do it successfully. I think she was extremely frightened by my escape, recognizing that I'd call on superhuman allies-- she left me a threatening letter in which she as much as admitted that she fled the house with all her possessions because she was afraid of my allies and their powers."

"Where is this letter?" Bishop asked.

"I threw it out," Erik said.

Bishop's expression darkened. "It was evidence. You should not have been so short-sighted."

"I've already told you everything relevant it said. The rest was worthless threats and posturing."

"He's right," Wolverine said. "Bitch was scared. You could smell it in the house. She ain't gonna be much to take down, if she spooks so fast moment she thinks we might be showin' up."

"She must have packed _very_ quickly," Erik said, "because she spent at least an hour, perhaps longer, looking for me. She went right past me in the forest-- fortunately, she had raised enough power that I felt her coming long before she could have spotted me, and I hid well-- probably an hour or two after my escape. I think it might have been another two or three after that when I called Charles."

"You contacted me at 2 pm. I immediately used Cerebro to try to locate her-- I'd already picked up a reading I thought was might be her, a reading that seemed very similar to you except for some odd quasi-telepathic elements. I had no difficulty reaching her, and so I decided to attempt a telepathic attack to hold her in place.

"I need to try to reconstruct what she did after the fact, because it all happened so fast I had no awareness at the time of exactly what she was doing. I touched her mind, read her surface thoughts and began to go deeper-- and suddenly I found myself yanked psychically and anchored into a different body. No sooner had I realized that I had been pulled off the astral plane and into a different body than I began to feel extremely ill- violent nausea, severe migraine, and intense vertigo, severe enough that I could barely lift my head."

"At that you were luckier than I was," Erik said. "I was unconscious for several hours and suffered from nausea and headaches for hours after that."

"I'm much more accustomed to being in different bodies than you are-- and we should also note that I was in _your_ body, which is probably much less different from my own than Davies' body is from yours. I'm not at all sure how long this lasted, but I was able to observe my surroundings-- I was in a truck, pulled over to what looked like the back of a shopping mall or perhaps business complex, and I was in your body, Magnus. Attempting to use your magnetic powers made me considerably more ill; I had to meditate and try to retreat away from the influence of the physical in order to regain access to my own powers. Once I'd successfully regained control, I reached out across the Astral Plane to try to find my own body again. I could plainly see a connection between myself and Lee Davies, and I followed that connection to return to my body, where I found Davies hitting the Shi'ar power core with a fire extinguisher. She'd cracked the crystal, and I could see that the energies within were about to explode outward, so I attacked her; she switched us again, and this time I could see what she was doing.

"While there is such a thing as a disembodied mind on the Astral Plane, such as the Shadow King after I killed him, most minds on the Astral Plane are linked to their bodies through a virtually unbreakable cord. What Lee Davies does is to rip the cord free from her target, detaching her own, and then re-attaching them both to the opposite bodies. It seems that the process of her detaching from her own body and attaching to the new one is primary; the fact that she pushes her victim out of their own body is a side effect. In effect, she kills her victims for an instant, leaving them forcibly disembodied before pushing them into the body she's moving from. This might cause the severe physical side effects both Magnus and I have noticed. This is a very specific psionic ability, not something any telepath could imitate, and as one might expect when she's detaching astral forms from their original bodies, it seems that telepathic powers stay with the minds. Thus, Magnus doesn't and can't have her power despite having the genes for it, now. It also seems quite apparent to me that, while ordinarily she needs to make physical contact with her victim, from within her own body, that isn't necessary if a telepath touches her mind. She needs her body to forge the psionic link that allows her to displace a mind, and if a telepath creates that link by attacking her or even touching her mind, she doesn't need to be in her body to swap... although it doesn't seem to be much to her advantage to switch with a pure telepath like myself, because my telepathy goes with my mind, it _does_ mean she can at least incapacitate and severely inconvenience any telepath that attacks her."

"It's far worse than that, Charles," Erik interrupted. "Davies has extensive experience with suiciding and then jumping back to her origin body. Apparently she did that the first time her power manifested. If a telepath attacks her there is nothing to stop her from killing that telepath; she might even have killed you if she could have figured out how to do it with a fire extinguisher, but I imagine that, being trapped in a wheelchair, she lacked the mobility to go get a weapon to kill you with."

"I see." Charles nodded slowly. "My recommendation was going to be that we avoid touching her telepathically if we can help it, but to use it in an emergency. Your information makes it seem that we need quite a severe emergency to take the risk. I will be attempting to restore Cerebro anyway-- the current version is dependent on the Shi'ar power core, and I don't have the ability to contact Lilandra and ask for a new core until I've got a Cerebro, but I will be rebuilding an earlier version that runs off household current. But I don't think we should use Cerebro to try to locate Davies, except in its purely passive, telepath-less mode. And I may not even be able to build that mode in without access to the Shi'ar computers."

"How do you recommend we locate her?" Storm asked.

"I've had an idea," Cyclops said. "I'm going to contact Lorna after this meeting and ask for her help. I want to keep it private-- Alex and Lorna can know what's going on if they have to, but I don't want X-Factor coming and involving themselves in a case of a mutant serial killer. Mutants need to try to keep this one secret from the government and the media if we can. But Lorna's magnetic powers ought to be able to quickly pinpoint the body snatcher-- she doesn't travel farther than the Northeast Coast, apparently."

"Clearfield wasn't exactly on the coast, Scott," Iceman said. "Lorna's good and all, but she isn't exactly a Magneto-locator; if she could do _that_ we'd've asked her to do it a lot more often, wouldn't we have?"

"Magneto had a bad habit of hiding out in the Southern Hemisphere. Lorna's not _that_ good. But if Lee Davies is in DC, I'm sure she'll know about it if she's paying attention. I'm actually a little surprised she hasn't gotten involved already, but maybe she was busy when the body snatcher was in DC."

"There's another possibility, should Lorna prove to be a less than efficacious alternative," Hank said. "But as I am not certain I will be capable of actually invoking this alternative, I'd prefer to discuss it with you privately, Scott and Charles."

"What kind of alternative?" Erik asked.

"The kind that involves technologies useful for the purpose of locating you, and therefore, our positions being what they are, I shall say no more about it to you. Rest assured I shall preserve the privacy of your current circumstances, but it would be sheerest folly for me to reveal anything more."

"You're talking about Richards' magnetic array, I take it?"

Hank blinked. "You... know about that?"

"Please, Beast. Richards is a legitimate scientist, who publishes in all the best journals, and I read everything pertaining to magnetism even when I haven't got time to keep up with the rest of physics. He would not be able to do the kind of research he describes doing without an extremely sensitive magnetic array. As well, do you seriously think I wouldn't have noticed the effects of an array designed to read electromagnetic fields? Unfortunately for him-- and, in our current circumstances, all of us-- I've bollixed his device."

"How? You haven't been in contact with the Fantastic Four-- I'm _sure_ they would have mentioned it to us."

"I control-- or controlled-- the Earth's magnetic field, Beast. I've simply arranged for there to be numerous powerful sources of magnetic flux in the Northeast area of the United States, and several other places it would be rather inconvenient to get to now. Richards' device can't detect the sort of localized power fields I put out because it's being affected by power fields that are much closer to it."

"Can you reverse these effects?" Cyclops asked. "I _had_ gotten the impression finding this woman was important to you."

"It's vitally important, but without my powers, no, I can't. I couldn't even reliably tell you where they are; I fly by the Earth's magnetic field, not by landmarks, so I'm not sure I could find them without being able to sense the fields."

"You get hoist on your own petard a lot, don't you, Maggie?" Wolverine asked. Erik ignored him.

"There is a telepathic possibility, but it's a strange one," Jean said. "If Rogue took the powers of a telepath, and used Cerebro... it seems that Rogue's power is similar to Davies'. If Davies' power works by trying to move her into a new host body, and only secondarily displaces the host, Rogue's power could handle that without Rogue being displaced. We'd have her trapped."

"Uh, _no."_ Rogue shook her head violently. "Ah am _not_ havin' that bitch in mah head. First off, Ah'm too powerful. She gets into mah body and gets control-- and the people in mah head, they _can_ get control, Carol always used to-- and we're fucked. Second off, Ah ain't takin' the risk that with both her power and mine workin' together to put her in mah head, the transfer might be permanent. And third off, we don't know that mah power works faster than hers, or that mah power works for sure on a telepath at all-- usually Ah just have static in mah head, it ain't like Ah make a habit of absorbin' telepaths who try to read me. So her ability might _work,_ and then Ah'd be Magneto and she'd be me, and how the hell would that help us?"

"I doubt she'd want to remain any length of time in a woman's body," Xavier said. "Part of Davies' illness is an overpowering desire to be male. She's not a transsexual-- it's not that she believes she is male deep down inside, so much as that she believes that women are weak and that the only way to have power is to be male. So she won't stay in a female body, however powerful, longer than she has to. That being said, Rogue's concern about the ways the plan could go wrong are very valid, and so I can't recommend that course of action."

"We are wasting time," Erik said. "She could be out killing people right now. Let us contact Polaris immediately."

"Do you really think she'd be up and about this soon?" Charles asked. "She struck us with an EMP from her location near Clearfield no more than twenty minutes after she'd switched back to your body, and I can only imagine what a strain such a long-distance, localized pulse could have put on her."

Charles, of course, knew his weaknesses far better than the X-Men did. He sighed. "I don't know. Yes, it would have been a terrible strain. Yes, if I'd done it at most points in my life, it probably would have left me out of commission for several days. But the power amplification Cortez inflicted on me never went away. My body is much more powerful now than it used to be. Who knows how long Davies will be out of commission? I know she'd have been struck down for at least a day, but it's been almost that-- she could be out killing people tonight."

"But she's scared," Jean said. "She pulled up everything from her home and ran rather than face us. She attacked the mansion, destroyed the power core and then EMP'd the conventional equipment, but she has no way of knowing how much damage that would have done us-- she can't read minds, right? So I don't think she's going to go using her powers tonight. I think she'll lay low. It'll take her a few days to get her nerve back."

"And you know this because? Have you intimate familiarity with serial killers that the rest of us lack?" Erik asked sarcastically.

"I'm a telepath, and I've read a lot of minds, and studied psychology. You pick things up, defending the world from scumbags. Professor, what do you think?"

"I think we are likely to have at least a day's respite before she strikes again, but obviously let's get her located as soon as possible."

"Right." Cyclops stood up. "I'm going to go call Lorna. X-Men, consider yourselves on standby; if she's able to find the body snatcher for us, we'll be going out as soon as she's got a fix."

Erik followed him out of the briefing room and into the communications center. Storm did as well. The rest of the X-Men trooped off to get breakfast, or whatever other morning tasks awaited them.

* * *

Alex Summers' face appeared on the viewscreen. "Scott! Hey there. What can I do for you?"

"Is Lorna around?"

"Afraid not. She's down with the flu-- it's been going around here. Is there something I can help you with?"

"Damn," Cyclops said. "We really could have used her help. We're tracking a mutant with powers similar to Magneto's, who just took out Cerebro and has the ability to attack telepaths who probe her mind. I was hoping to call in Lorna to help track the mutant down."

Alex shook his head. "Right now Lorna's doing well if she can open the mini-fridge I put in the bedroom and levitate a stainless steel water pitcher out of it from next to her bed. I could call in help from Val, though-- I'm pretty sure the Feds are working on a project to track Magneto down, and if--"

"Sorry to interrupt, but don't tell me anything else about it. This--" he pointed at Erik-- "is a pal of Magneto's. She's helping us with the investigation, but don't tell me what the Feds are doing about Magneto in front of her."

"You know, you _could_ have warned me before I spilled something. You're working with one of Magneto's allies?" Havok studied Erik intently. "What's going on, bro?"

"It need be none of your concern, Havok," Erik said. "We no more wish to share information about the Acolytes' troubles with agents of the US government than you would wish to tell us of the measures you are taking against Magneto. Suffice it to say that people are dying, innocent people, and Magneto may be blamed for their deaths unless we take quick action. But if Polaris is unavailable, there is no help X-Factor can give."

"I thought Magneto was dead." Havok narrowed his eyes. "Pietro's going to be interested in hearing about that. What'd you say your name was, lady?"

"I didn't. You may call me Erika Masters, if you must call me something. And you may indeed tell Pietro that Magnus is not dead, if it would matter to him."

"It seems we'll have to look elsewhere for assistance," Storm said. "Alex, please give our best wishes to Lorna and any other teammates afflicted with the flu. My prayers will be with her."

"I'll tell her you said so. Thanks, Ororo." He looked over at Cyclops. "Scott, how bad _is_ this thing? I understand Ms. Masters over there doesn't want to give her boss's secrets out to the Feds, but we _can_ be discreet if you need the help."

Cyclops shook his head. "It's something I _really_ don't want the government brought in on, Alex. Thanks anyway, but this is definitely a job for outlaw renegade mutants." He smiled slightly when he said the last, as if it were a private joke. "Lorna could've been helpful enough that we could take the risk, but if she's flat on her back, then let's just leave it at that. If we still need her help in a week or so when she's likely recovered, we'll call. Who else is sick?"

"Guido and Multiple Man. Rahne and I had it, but we got better, and Pietro claims he had it for a few hours, but the rest of us were asleep at the time, so who knows. And Val's had it for a week and a half, so at least we know it isn't singling the mutants out. Just the usual equal opportunity flu."

"That's good to hear. Tell Lorna I said get better soon, and I'll see you later."

"Yup. Later."

The viewscreen went dead. Cyclops turned on Magneto. "Acolytes? They lived too?"

Bodies frozen forever in metal. Chrome, bloody, broken, unrecognizable. "They are dead. Not that it's any of your business, Cyclops. But since you told your brother I am Magneto's ally, I thought it best to use the name of my most recent allies."

"I'm... sorry to hear they're dead. Not that I expected anything else, but... they didn't deserve to die."

Cyclops had been one of the ones he'd brainwashed to his cause briefly, one of the ones who'd befriended his Acolytes. "I have sworn to avenge them on Fabian Cortez, eventually. Right now, though... do you have any other plans, since Polaris will be unavailable?"

"Yeah, but... it's a plan I really, really hate. Let's get everyone back together. I'm hoping _someone_ will have a better notion."

* * *

Once the X-Men had gathered back together after breakfast, Cyclops outlined what had happened in his conversation with Alex. "Without the ability to track her directly by a magnetic array, like Dr. Richards' device, or Cerebro, and with Lorna out of commission... I'm afraid we're going to have to do this one the hard way. And I only know of one way to do that, but I'm hoping someone else has another suggestion, because it's a very, very dangerous idea."

"Hey, dangerous ideas are our specialty," Iceman said.

Cyclops turned his flat, expressionless visor in Iceman's direction. "Not like this one, Bobby," he said. "Magneto. You told us that this woman prefers to prey on powerful men. That she likes mutants. The most effective way I can think of to hunt her down is to lure her in. She picks up her prey in gay bars... what if she knew there was a mutant who was going there? What would she do?"

"No, Cyclops." Erik saw Cyclops' plan-- it was audacious, and might even work, but he would not allow it. The risk was far, far too great. Even if the body snatcher didn't have the chance to kill her chosen victim, these sheltered X-Men would not likely have any experience of sexual molestation. "I won't permit it."

"It's not really your decision, Magneto."

"Scott, are you actually suggesting that we have X-Men stake out gay bars and hope she tries to _rape_ one of them?" Jean's tone was as horrified as Erik felt.

"No, no. We'd set things up so that we could come to the rescue the moment she took the bait. Remember, we know what Magneto looks like; she doesn't know what we look like." He looked around at the assembled X-Men. "Given her powers, and what we know about how she chooses her targets, I think there's only a small handful of us who could actually do this. Wolverine, Colossus and Archangel are all out because of the dependence on metal. Hank's image inducer is also made of metal, and he's far too easily recognizable as an X-Man without one. The women can't do it. So the only possible candidates are myself, Bobby, Bishop, and Gambit."

"Euw," Bobby said. "I mean, if this is gonna stop a serial killer, I'll put on lipstick and swish my way into a gay bar, but-- euw. Can I go on record as saying euw?"

"Worse dan you t'ink, Cyclops," Gambit said. "Your glasses make you vulnerable-- you can't take your visor wit' you wit'out warnin' her-- and Bobby, I just don't t'ink he's got de actin' skills. I don' know about Bishop-- if I really trained you in de future, Bishop, you know how to do dis kinda t'ing-- and me, _I_ can do it, no problem. Wit' my eyes, I can even advertise de mutant t'ing wit'out givin' away my powers. But dat reduces it to two."

"This is absolute foolishness!" Erik said. "The danger is far too great!"

"The danger to myself would be minimal," Bishop said. "Her powers will not work on me if she doesn't know what I can do. And I have no doubt that Remy LeBeau can successfully infiltrate any community he chooses. My concern is that this seems a long-range strategy, and we have little time."

"Why not conduct an actual investigation?" Psylocke asked. "We can visit gay bars with photos of Magneto out of costume, and ask around to see who's seen him. The gay community is likely to respond very well to an investigation of the Electrokiller, given how many of them have been killed by the body snatcher. They should give us plenty of aid. We may not need mutant stalking goats."

"I much prefer that plan," Xavier said. "Gambit, Bishop, if the two of you wish to try your hand at being bait, I'll outfit you both with small devices to amplify your psionic output so you can call for help immediately, if required. But rather than wait for such a strategy to draw her to us, let's look for her at the same time. I have a contact in New York City I can ask to keep an eye on things, and we can send paired teams to the other cities to impersonate the FBI and directly investigate the Electrokiller murders. We have an advantage in that we know what she looks like, and the actual FBI does not. This would let us make use of _all_ of our resources, instead of the only two men we have with no metal on their person who have training at this type of infiltration." He shook his head. "I also won't allow either of you two, Gambit and Bishop, to do this unless you're both comfortable with your ability to blend in, able to handle yourself should any situations of a sexual nature arise, and absolutely willing to volunteer. Sexual infiltration operations are not work the X-Men generally do, for a good reason, and I didn't train _any_ of you in such work because, frankly, we're not the Hellfire Club and I have no wish to be."

"I am not comfortable with such a task," Bishop said. "I come from a different time; I don't have experience with the sexual mores of your time period. I would be better suited to assisting in a traditional investigation."

"Well, den it's down to me," Gambit said. "I don' have a problem wit' work like dis, and I'm pretty good at it. So I'll take it on. Ain't like anyone's goin' believe I'm FBI, anyway." He grinned. "I get into trouble, you goin' come rescue me, Roguey?"

"You _are_ trouble, swamp rat." She was grinning too. "Ah'll shadow Gambit. Ah got infiltration trainin', too, and in mah experience, plenty of women go to gay bars to enjoy the company without havin' to deal with the lechery. Ah'll go with him as his gal pal, and make sure he's got plenty of backup if the body snatcher takes the bait."

"Well, I feel a little better about the plan if Gambit's experienced with this kind of work, and you're backing him up, Rogue," Cyclops said. "But I'm glad we have an alternative in place as well."

Erik still couldn't stand the plan. "And if the body snatcher overpowers Gambit and kills Rogue? Are you prepared for the logical consequences, Gambit?"

Red on black eyes met his evenly. "It ain't goin' to come to that. I'm very experienced at getting myself out of trouble, and I doubt the body snatcher could take Rogue and me on, not unless she's got a lot more trainin' than you said. Rogue's trained by Mystique and de Professor, and _both_ of dem have taken _you_ down. We got not'in' to worry about long as we're careful."

"And as long as you don't blow your cover by flirting with each other."

"Mon dieu, you don't know _anyt'in'_ about gay men, do you?" Gambit's smile was mocking. "I go to a gay bar wit' Rogue, and flirt wit' her _and_ everyone else, everyone goin' t'ink eit'er I'm bi or I'm flamin'. It won't be a problem, trust me. If you _really_ want your body back, I'd t'ink you'd want someone as strong as Rogue on de front line, non?"

"It seems we are settled on a plan, then," Storm said. "I will make arrangements to create false identities for all of us who will be participating in the investigation. Remy, what city will you be targeting?"

"Well, we got NYC covered wit' de Prof's contact, and flu or no, Lorna's probably goin' notice Magneto's body runnin' amuck in DC. Where you t'ink, Mags? Boston, Philly, Baltimore or somewhere else?"

"I'd recommend Philadelphia. It's where she captured me and where her post office box is-- it's likely to be her primary base of operations. Failing that, Baltimore is actually closer to where she was holding me captive than anywhere else."

"Let's do Philly," Rogue said. "It's got more of a nightlife."

"We will break into teams of 2," Storm said. "Professor Xavier, are you well enough to maintain telepathic contact with us?"

"I am indeed. I will also be working on rebuilding the version of Cerebro that isn't dependent on the Shi'ar technology, if for no better reason than to contact Lilandra and ask for replacement equipment."

"Very well. Magnus, you and I have an appointment in the city we will need to leave for shortly. After Magnus and I return, X-Men, we will divide up into teams and go to the different target cities." Storm stood up. "Come, Magnus. We've an hour and a half, and I had planned to take the car today. It would be best to leave soon."

"All right." He followed her out of the room, grateful she hadn't announced to the assemblage what his appointment was for, although probably some of them could guess.

****

CHAPTER THREE TO BE CONTINUED (chapter is not done)


End file.
